CHANDIGARH, April 15: See the World Cup . for free? Sure! With half a dozen schemes dangling a free ticket to London and a front row seat at Lords, thousands of city kids are, to say the least, fired with hope and gambler's grit.Flavoured with expectation, certain brands of chocolates, biscuits and soft drinks now seem tastier than ever and even some news magazines are attracting the interest of young readers previously known to prefer comics.What's more, they are selecting shaving blades for their dads. Not because they're concerned with the smoothness of papa's chin, but because the right packet of blades could enable them watch cricket in England.Says Rama Sharma, a store attendant at a super-market here: ``Our sale of that particular brand of biscuits has shot up ever since they announced the scheme.''Britannia's `World Cup Jao' scheme requires the hopeful to ``score'' by collecting a 100 runs from packets of Britannia bread or biscuits. Each packet is imprinted with a number, so it's just a matter of reaching a ton which entitles the contestant to an entry form, which may pay off in a World Cup ticket!Pepsi too has a scheme: the inner side of the crown decides the aspirant's fate. Oh yeah . one more thing: you have to complete a sentence: ``It's my World Cup, aha! .'' and you are the winner. An official of the local Pepsi bottling franchise pointed to another popular scheme launched some time back. ``This was the `Pocket Your Hero' scheme. With every two Pepsi bottles the purchaser got a trading card. Now we have begun redemptions, exchanging trading cards for albums and other things.'' Wilkinson and 7 'O Clock have entry forms in the packets of blades. These are simple . fill in and post the coupons and say your prayers to Lady Luck.Besides a host of other prizes, the news magazine Outlook offers a return ticket to the World Cup finals. This `mega-prize' goes to the knowledgeable fan who successfully comes through six rounds of questions.Not to be outdone, India Today has its `Kapil Dev Dream Team Contest'. Just suggest a team for the World Cup; if it tallies with one compiled by Kapil Dev, you could end up with a five-day hospitality package for two to World Cup, including tickets.While kids are excited, some parents look askance at the numerous offers. ``My eight-year-old son drinks half-a-dozen bottles of soft drink just for the crown,'' says Vidya, a teacher here.A housewife, Bimla Sharma, is fed up and complains that her nine-year-old buys more biscuits than the whole family can eat and has taken to stashing biscuits in every empty tin in the kitchen. One youngster, asked whether he thought that he really had a chance to win one of the coveted tickets, replied optimistically: ``Odds are very good. fifty-fifty!''Asked to explain how he figured those odds when tickets are limited to only a handful and hopefuls number in lakhs, he chirped: ``It's not me versus lakhs; there are just two chances to calculate. Either I win or I don't. See? Fifty-fifty!''
