P2

The venue for this GP is the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit, where Michael Schumacher has a history of winning seven times. Also given the fact that it usually rains during the race should help Michael who starts from P2 today. Ironically, local boy Jacques Villeneuve, son of Gilles, has never once won his home race, despite having raced with different teams since 1996, including Williams, BAR Honda and even Renault!

It is worrying, however, that Rubens Barrichello had some gearbox problems with his car because that means it could happen to Michael's car also.

Jenson Button surprised everyone by grabbing pole position, while both Renaults start from the second row of the grid. The Mercedes-McLarens of Kimi Räikkönen and Juan Pablo Montoya start from P5 and P7 but Williams-BMW are placed in the seventh row.

Indian hope Narain Karthikeyan improved his qualifying performance and is placed P17 before team-mate Tiago Monteiro. Narain's been getting some bad press this weekend, especially from team boss Colin Kolles, who hinted darkly at replacing Narain with someone else. Perhaps someone should point out to Kolles that nobody has really gone places in a Jordan, but most rookies have started with the team before establishing their mark elsewhere. Maybe that'll be the case with Narain too?

Oh, all this will change in a few hours once the five red lights illuminate and then go off, signalling the start of the 2005 Canadian GP! Once the scarlet car crosses the first corner, it'll all be up to the pit-stop strategy!

Bhalo shit

Poor Pranab Mukherjee. Two days after the story of the leaky Brigadier broke, our eunuch of a - sorry, that's Shivraj Patil. Well, our faggot of a Defence Minister made his first statement about the allegation made by Gohar Ayub Khan. Pronobda said that Gohar Ayub Khan is talking bunkum. He stopped slightly short of calling the gent a pathological liar.

What actually happened is that Pronobda started off and halfway through his diatribe, realised George Fernandes could not possibly have been the Defence Minister in 1965. So Pronobda couldn't possibly have insinuated that, by George!

If he did insinuate that the Defence Minister of 1965 was responsible and should have resigned, then Madam would have been very displeased indeed. As it happens, Pronobda speaks even more unintelligible Hindi than does Madam, so the possibility of being misunderstood increases. Then, there's also the uncomfortable thought that perhaps Madam understands Hindi better than Pronobda. So she might understand everything, after all.

So let's be clear about this: Gohar Ayub Khan is talking bunkum because Jawaharlal Nehru was the PM in the 1958 and Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Prime Minister in 1965. Both Congress luminaries. A Leaky Brigadier, therefore, would invite uncomfortable questions about the Dynasty and that would never do.

Poor Pronobda. Just when he could have had George Fernandes embroiled in more CBI investigations, he found it was time to turn chicken.

Growing pains...

My wife of a little over two years is well over five months pregnant. She's not uncomfortably big so that she's waddling around yet, but she feels the difference in her size. It's about time, say more experienced people, that she should be able to feel the baby kick. Move. But not just yet. This is the stage of wonderment.

During our routine visits to the Ob-Gy, we've heard the heartbeat with the help of the heartbeat monitor. During the ultrasound, we've seen the heart beating, the limbs moving, the head turning. I cannot describe the feeling going through my mind at that instant. It's like everything in the world can be possible, if it is possible that another life is being created over this span of 40 weeks.

Now, every night, when we're falling asleep, the Wife and I run our hands over her stomach. We can distinctly make out where the baby is: her stomach is stretched tight there, like she's over eaten at dinnertime.

Over the past two nights however, we have felt a perceptible movement, as the foetus shifts about inside of her. One moment, its lying at the bottom of her abdominal cavity, the next moment, its gone and moved to her side. Placing our palms and fingers over my wife's stomach, we can feel that the baby has moved around. We're trying to make out where the head is, but we can't. Not for sure, anyway. However, my wife complains every time she has to turn, that the baby is holding on to her from inside, making her feel heavy on the wrong side.

I wonder: what must it be like, for the baby? 40 weeks enclosed in a bubble of water that moves, stretches and shifts. What must it be feeling like, to have its cocoon - its entire world upto this point - move about as my wife goes through the daily grind? Does it ever complain that my wife is shaking it about, just about the time that it's trying to sleep? Or that there's a cacophony outside, when we're stuck in a traffic jam? Does it feel scared? Lost?

We're almost there, Baby. Just hold on for a few weeks more and you'll be with us.