So I didn't write much this week. Fortunately, a glance through the drafts section gave me what's below. Written during July 2014, it describes my life long passion.
***
My affair with her is the classic illicit story. Even though it was short lived, what we had was spicy, lusty, beautiful and more, up until the last moment, when the roof fell over our heads, reminding us both that we were never meant to be together, at least in a physical sense. That doesn't mean that we are not flirting anymore.
To avoid any unnecessary assumptions or presumptions from your part as to who she is, I would like to let you know that "she" here means FOOTBALL - the one true love I have now (then).
My legs zombie walk towards a football on seeing one; I still watch from the sidelines as those more fortunate than me knock around the ball, and show some skill for a good measure; I FOLLOW a football team to the little bits of news that come out from it. To say the least, I still wish I hadn't done that simple turn on that fateful day - then maybe, I could have still played today.
That was just the trailer. Let us now begin the show. From the begining.
I was never a sports fan. I never had the stamina/desire to play any game, in which you have to run around the place over and over again. That meant badminton doubles and cricket were the only games - here games means those "fun" activities in which you have to stand - I even tried to play. This is on top of the customary basketball matches I had to take part in because of my height factor. Oh!!! How I loathed having to play in my school days, and how I wish I had the sense then to not to.
I still remember the first time I "played" football. I put played in quotes because it was not actually a match, but a training session, and the Physical Education Sir, Mr.Vincent chose me as the sacrificial lamb for that particular day. The task before me was pretty simple. Put the football a yard or two in front of you, roll it back using the tip of your foot, and as it rolls towards you, use your foot to flick it up. Simple, right??
Well, that day, to the 12 year old me, it was the single most, physically challenging task that I had to complete. Sadly, no matter how much I tried, in my attempts to flick the ball, all I could achieve was to kick it further away. Thus ended my first tryst with the football, which can be termed as nothing, but a failure.
Now, when it came to following football, I was like any other blue-blooded Indian - only Cricket. Football is a leap year-ish tradition here, wherein the FIFA World Cup is watched with much awe and passion, which fizzles out at the final whistle of the final game, only to come back again in four years.
And so we arrive at the summer of 2004, when I had finished my 10th grade, and was idling at home. I happened to come across the football game FIFA, and that changed the way I thought about football.
Like a misguided missile reaching its target, a few simple push at the "Enter" button in the starting menus of that game left me with ARSENAL FC as my chosen football club. It wasn't a concisous choice, but one I thank myself for making anyways. I started playing football on the computer with a dedication I always showed only in lazing around. And I came to like the team, I was playing with - Arsenal FC. The team had pace, power and flair, I unconciously started following the team.
And thus did Football reappear in my life. It was a slow start - it took over 6 years for it to grow into something significant. The grip that the game of cricket had on me waned, and I was becoming a football addict. And the transistion from an addict to a fanatic was complete when I started playing football, in real life, again.
I will never claim I was any good at it. I was too sloopy to be a keeper; was clumsy in tackles to be a defender; lacked any skill to take on a defender like a midfielder; and didn't have enough power in my legs to frighten the opposite keeper with my shots as a striker. I could go all melodramatic, and say what I had was love for the game, and all that crap. Even though the said crap is true, it wasn't just that.
I, like most of the other people like me, had a knack to pick the incapability of the street football players to apply the offside rule properly in our matches. We would hang around in the opposition half, mostly close to their goalkeeper, in search of long balls from our team, or stray back passes from the other. We wont finish off every chance that came our way, but our inability in other aspects of the game forces our teams to play us so.
And so in the winter of 2010 did my footballing days begin again. I was just settling into my life at Delhi, and football became my addiction and my passion. But the rest of the story is for another post.
To avoid any unnecessary assumptions or presumptions from your part as to who she is, I would like to let you know that "she" here means FOOTBALL - the one true love I have now (then).
My legs zombie walk towards a football on seeing one; I still watch from the sidelines as those more fortunate than me knock around the ball, and show some skill for a good measure; I FOLLOW a football team to the little bits of news that come out from it. To say the least, I still wish I hadn't done that simple turn on that fateful day - then maybe, I could have still played today.
That was just the trailer. Let us now begin the show. From the begining.
I was never a sports fan. I never had the stamina/desire to play any game, in which you have to run around the place over and over again. That meant badminton doubles and cricket were the only games - here games means those "fun" activities in which you have to stand - I even tried to play. This is on top of the customary basketball matches I had to take part in because of my height factor. Oh!!! How I loathed having to play in my school days, and how I wish I had the sense then to not to.
I still remember the first time I "played" football. I put played in quotes because it was not actually a match, but a training session, and the Physical Education Sir, Mr.Vincent chose me as the sacrificial lamb for that particular day. The task before me was pretty simple. Put the football a yard or two in front of you, roll it back using the tip of your foot, and as it rolls towards you, use your foot to flick it up. Simple, right??
Well, that day, to the 12 year old me, it was the single most, physically challenging task that I had to complete. Sadly, no matter how much I tried, in my attempts to flick the ball, all I could achieve was to kick it further away. Thus ended my first tryst with the football, which can be termed as nothing, but a failure.
Now, when it came to following football, I was like any other blue-blooded Indian - only Cricket. Football is a leap year-ish tradition here, wherein the FIFA World Cup is watched with much awe and passion, which fizzles out at the final whistle of the final game, only to come back again in four years.
And so we arrive at the summer of 2004, when I had finished my 10th grade, and was idling at home. I happened to come across the football game FIFA, and that changed the way I thought about football.
Like a misguided missile reaching its target, a few simple push at the "Enter" button in the starting menus of that game left me with ARSENAL FC as my chosen football club. It wasn't a concisous choice, but one I thank myself for making anyways. I started playing football on the computer with a dedication I always showed only in lazing around. And I came to like the team, I was playing with - Arsenal FC. The team had pace, power and flair, I unconciously started following the team.
And thus did Football reappear in my life. It was a slow start - it took over 6 years for it to grow into something significant. The grip that the game of cricket had on me waned, and I was becoming a football addict. And the transistion from an addict to a fanatic was complete when I started playing football, in real life, again.
I will never claim I was any good at it. I was too sloopy to be a keeper; was clumsy in tackles to be a defender; lacked any skill to take on a defender like a midfielder; and didn't have enough power in my legs to frighten the opposite keeper with my shots as a striker. I could go all melodramatic, and say what I had was love for the game, and all that crap. Even though the said crap is true, it wasn't just that.
I, like most of the other people like me, had a knack to pick the incapability of the street football players to apply the offside rule properly in our matches. We would hang around in the opposition half, mostly close to their goalkeeper, in search of long balls from our team, or stray back passes from the other. We wont finish off every chance that came our way, but our inability in other aspects of the game forces our teams to play us so.
And so in the winter of 2010 did my footballing days begin again. I was just settling into my life at Delhi, and football became my addiction and my passion. But the rest of the story is for another post.
***
Until next week.
No comments :
Post a Comment