Open Forum’s Open Heart for World Cup Final

Subodh Bhuchar (front row center, kneeling in white shirt) brought together his friends over Facebook to have a World Cup Finals party at Madras Pavilion this past Sunday, July 13.

Subodh Bhuchar (front row center, kneeling in white shirt) brought together his friends over Facebook to have a World Cup Finals party at Madras Pavilion this past Sunday, July 13.

By Jawahar Malhotra 

SUGAR LAND: By the time that Germany was whooping Brazil in the World Cup quarter finals, Subodh Bhuchar was burning up the bandwidth on Facebook in agony seeing the team so thoroughly demolished. He got the chatter started to get together for a World Cup Finals rendezvous and pretty soon there was a clamor from his friends circle that they wanted in.

Not a slouch for these kind of spontaneous get together, Bhuchar, who is one of the three hosts of the Open Forum radio show, started the ball moving, even if his favorite team was struggling, and organized a snack laden luncheon get together to catch the World Cup fever!

So, about thirty people showed up, some in shorts and sandals, kicked up their feet, enjoyed some cold beers and ate the sumptuous idli-sambar, dosa-sambar and buffet lunch that Madras Pavilion in Sugar Land is known for. If you walked around 2 pm on Sunday, July 13, the speakers were on full blast in the banquet room and the screen was rolled down playing the match shown on ABC Channel 13.

Madras Pavilion owners Mahesh Shah and Rajan Radhakrishnan were good sports about the clamor, and tuned in the two televisions in the main restaurant to the same game. Their staff brought in hot food and cold drinks to the soccer fans and even lingered to catch the exciting points. Bhuchar and his Open Forum partner Dinesh Chedda cheerily declared that the food and drinks was on them, courtesy of their radio show.

There were groans when Lionel Messi of Argentina had three near-goals, just missing the German goal and panic as Germany kept attacking persistently. In the end, when the match went into double overtime, Bhuchar felt it would go into penalty kicks. But, in the 113th minute, out of nowhere, Germany’s last substitute player Mario Goetze just pumped the goal in and finished off the match for a 1-0 lead and Bhuchar groaned in agony as his team lost the 2014 World Cup.