Jul 20, 2010
For a month, the human race across the planet experienced adrenaline floods and dizzying pulse rates as men in uniform from 32 nations used their legs to get their hands on the most coveted of sporting trophies. The dust is beginning to settle over the football fields of South Africa and while the battered Dutch hearts are starting to heal, the Spanish ones just can’t stop singing. But the biggest hero to have emerged from the entire World Cup drama is of course Paul, the eight-legged wonder of Germany and a champion clairvoyant in the making.
Eight teams against who the octopus predicted were literally ‘Paulverised,’ and their fans, including his own German compatriots have sworn to make soups and curries out of him.
The Spaniards on the other hand have actually granted him honorary citizenship and have even invited him to their annual Octopus Festival. I wonder what Paul will do with his citizenship – he needn’t vote, he can simply predict the outcome of any election. Spanish businessmen are trying to buy him and I just can imagine what might happen if, say, our own Vijay Mallya were to throw in a few thousand euros to get him to India.
Now that would be interesting. In fact, that’s an idea that’s been making the rounds of the Indian media lately. So let me too have my share of predictions.
If Paul were to become an Indian, probably the first thing he would have to endure is the way we would make mincemeat of his name. There would be parliamentary debates and opinion polls and newsroom arguments on whether ‘Paul’ should be swadeshicised to perhaps Palsingh or Palke. Of course, they would never reach a consensus and meanwhile Paul would continue to be apPa(u)lled by all the media attention, with reporters vying to thrust their mikes into his face and news channels doing exclusives about his family, lineage and what not, ending up with some vague Indian connection to his great-great-great grandfather’s uncle’s brother-in-law who served as the main dish in the Maharaja’s dinner spread!
Then there would be the new ‘Paul ka Swayamvar’ during which female octopuses from across the country would compete to tie the knot with him. I wonder on which finger and which arm an octopus wears the wedding ring (may be we will have our channels debating on that issue too). No matter, as long as there are viewers voting and competitors dancing and conspiring and pointing all eight of their arms at each other. We would need bigger TV screens to accommodate such a plethora of arms at a single shot. That means television manufacturers too will jump in with mega LCD screens at special prices and bumper prizes like dinner with (mind you, not dinner of) Paul and his new bride.
Just think of the P(au)litical implications. Paul-iticians would love to have him in their parties, and if nothing else he would at least become the symbol of some party probably led by an astrologer. But then we might also hope that he would predict the election results even before they are conducted, saving us crores of money. Wonder if Paul is the solution for our poverty, but then he can hardly be the panacea for our corruption. We might also use him to resolve issues with Pakistan – SM Krishna could have well saved himself a trip and some dignity too if Paul had been there to stop him. But then again we don’t really need any mollusc or even fairies to predict Indo-Pak talks.
Imagine the IPL auctions with Paul as the centre of attention predicting each player’s performance at the time of bidding. Probably Neeta Ambani or Shahrukh Khan would bargain hard to buy him off, but then the BCCI would want to hold on tentatively to all of Paul’s tentacles and Lalit Modi for all you know may sell off the rights to an all-octopus franchisee. However considering that Paul may stick to predicting players’ performances, we might as well see the number of teams depleting to only two (nobody would want to invest on non-performers) who needn’t play as Paul would do the job for them. It will be a whole new beginning for the Indian Paul League (or Legs, whichever you prefer).
Bollywood, of course, would be the biggest gainer. We would watch Paul featuring alongside Hrithik Roshan ala Jadoo of Koi Mil Gaya fame in the third sequel of the movie, perhaps as Jadoo’s grandson reincarnated as the gifted oracular octopus. What I wouldn’t pay to watch Paul dance like Hrithik! And instead of a petty college basketball match we would have a full-fledged soccer World Cup in which India too would participate and even win thanks to Paul’s jadoo (no pun intended!). India in soccer World Cup – sigh - that’s why they say ‘fantastic things happen only in movies.’ But one thing’s for sure, our Bollywood kingpins would have a hot topic for Tweeting and discussing on their blogs. Javed Akhter would wax eloquent about Paul with his shayaris while Amitabh would praise Popular Paul to know end.
I could go on and on about Paul’s potential career opportunities in India. His best bet would be to become a traffic supervisor – we really need someone with eight arms to control the gridlocks on our roads (though I do believe he might use two of them to hold his head in frustration). Perhaps he wouldn’t mind using his talent to make a few quick bucks and become the richest octopus alive.
And meanwhile we’ll all be singing Paul Paul dil ke paas….
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