Billions? Billions.

Is this not what the Olympics are all about? One by one, nations joining together with unity of purpose?

So when I point out that the Budding Ventriloquist Winter Olympic Coverage (TM) has been embraced by India (Population 1.3 Billon - that's Billion, with a B), don't you just want to break out into a chorus of "We are the World"?

India has made its presence known in the Winter Olympics before.  Their biggest hope for success is in the luge. In 2006 and now again in Vancouver, Skivas Kashavan (pictured) will give it strong run (or slide).  India also has two Alpine skiers, Tashi Lundup and Jamyang Namgail, ready to take a run (or slide) at it.

I smell medal.

(Before you go there - Skivas has a look, but not "the look." No ventriloquist dummy face listing for him.)

The ventriloquism world in India seems to start and stop at the feet of Ramdas Padhye, children's show host and awesome puppeteer.  He and his wife Apara make a great team, his puppets are creative, and he's being so entertaining, it doesn't matter how much his lips move.

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Ramdas and Aparna make quite a ventriloquist/puppeting team. Not that I want to take yet another opportunity, should my wife be reading this, to suggest that, well, wouldn't it be great for a husband/wife team like us to be the American Ramdas and Aparna?

I can already feel my wife burying her face in her hands, shaking her head. Is that a wee bit of crazed weeping, too?

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I am just awestruck by the magnitude of the audience I'm tapping into now.  If you had told me my blog was going to be accessing a billion people, I would have scoffed. Probably would have shoo'ed you away. 

Now look at how huge this is. Wow.

Yes, Virginia, there sure is.

When I watched the clip of Indian Ventriloquist, Puppeteer & Puppet Maker Ramdas Padhye on the Ramdas Padhye Show, I showed my wife. I thought she might be interested in how ventriloquism is an international phenomenon.

Instead, her most direct reaction was to the bit at the end where Ramdas performs with his wife and puppeter, Aparna.

"Bet you wish you had a wife who did ventriloquism with you," she said. Of course my reply was a very articulate, "Hell, yea."

It just made me think of the possibilities with a male/female ventriloquist team with male and female dummies:

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee's classic play.  I'm pondering what would work better - my wife and I as the older, dysfunctional couple, the younger dysfunctional couple, or a mix.  I think this would resolve itself once we'd start blocking.

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, the groundbreaking 1960s movie that was groundbreaking because it was.  I'd have to be Ted, because I have a brother named Bob. Or should I be Bob, so that my brother Bob doesn't get pissed that a dummy is named after him? My wife is definitely Natalie Wood in more than a few parts of my imagination.

White Christmas would perhaps be the ultimate display of ventriloquism and puppeting skill with singing and dancing.  Although my wife and I are definitely the Bing Crosby and Rosemay Clooney characters, I'd have to do the Danny Kaye part only so I could have the "best thing happen when I'm dancing" with the Vera Ellen dummy. Destined to be a holiday classic. And, other than the word "bells", the song White Christmas is virtually free of the ventriloquism sounds from hell (Bs, Vs, Ps, Ms, etc).

But, alas, my bride is not a ventriloquist, nor does she want to be.

Come to think of it, I'm not a ventriloquist yet, either. But I have a plan and big visions - and that counts a lot.

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Thanks to my regular reader for the Ramdas Padhye links.  It's fascinating. You're the best.  Yes, I still say "regular reader" - singular.