From the Pensieve

I could say it was 24rth march, 1992, and a bright sunny day and little five year old me was out with my dad at a sports bar watching India playing in the world cup. Though I am well aware that people couldn't care less what i was up to (not in 1992, not before that and definitely not now), the truth is I don’t remember the date. I am not sure whether it was march. There were definitely no sports bar’s in cochin at that point of time (there might have been a remote 'kal' shop whose owner had enough business for him to feel like buying a T.V and occasionally the customers would flip on the sports channel. But there were no sports bars.) and my father did not drink. However, it was 1992 and India was playing in the world cup and I was sitting at home and watching the match and I have no idea whether it was a bright and sunny day because the curtains were drawn shut. Five year old me was totally in love with television and He-Man and Mahabaratha. On this particular day little old chubby jobless me saw the men in blue (and a decent dark blue it was, surpassed only by the decent dark blue of now) on his little television which was missing its protective encasing (smashed with much disdain one fine Sunday morning after it refused to show He-Man). As he sat there staring at the men in blue he witnessed a ‘small’ big kid, of the same age as the big kids near his house, dive full length to take a running catch. People would say five is a little too old in India to fall in love with cricket and who doesn’t fall in love with Sachin Tendulkar. Well, people say a lot of things. But, all said and done this is the moment I began admiring a great star who has since provided the whole of India with many a bright moments to remember and be inspired by.

Soon it was the year 2001. I don’t remember the day. My dad was still a non- alcoholic and I had begun to wonder why would people drink and smoke if they knew it kills. As an Indian it’s virtually impossible for one to not fall in love with cricket. Unfortunately by the time I, as a gangly young teen, managed to pry my eyes from the cricket pitches to the basketball courts the times and exploits of Michael Jordan had already become stories of yesterday. So it was a pleasant surprise to me as I sat in front of the telly one evening and listened to the news of how ‘His Airness’ was making a comeback in a Washington Wizards jersey. As the days passed I eagerly waited for his match to be aired, putting alarm and waking up early in the morning to make sure that when that trademark fade away jump shot is finally delivered on a basketball court again, albeit in a different jersey, I will be there to witness the magic. People kept reiterating that he was too old to be able to emulate his championship winning years again. But, for a wiry lad in Cochin, it was sufficient to see a great entertainer deliver his trademark shots and move around on the court, his intentions and resolve hampered only by an aging body and by no mere mortal.

This time I don’t remember the day, date or year. All I know is that the moment is sandwiched between the previous one I narrated and the next one I am going to narrate. Dad still didn't have a reason to try drinking and I was sitting there gulping down half a watermelon all by myself. Great rivalries between great champions is not something that one gets to witness always. So when this happens, as a sports fan, one is always ready to make sacrifices in order to be able to watch the battle. So, as my cousins were having a jolly good outing,I sat there on the bed (legs tied up in a Padmasana and with spoon in hand and munching away to glory) watching the ‘Flying Finn’ Hakkinen and the the all time great Michael Schumacher zip around the track. After a really bad start to the season Hakkinen was finally coming alive and proving his doubters wrong by taking the race by the scruff and almost lapping the red Ferrari with only lap to go. At this moment I would like to interrupt the moment by saying that when two greats battle, the whole audience inevitably divides itself in support. You can only hope that you chose the right great to support because at the end of the day one half is going to feel very crappy and the other half amazingly cheery. For some unknown reason I had decided to support Hakkinen and hence despise Schumacher. Unfortunately for Hakkinen I was meant to feel crappy that day and so he dramatically blew his engine kilometers away from the finish line and had to stand and helplessly watch as Schumacher zoomed past in his red car to claim victory.

September 2009, the day is 26th of the month, there are sports bar’s in cochin now and my father still doesn’t drink. I have decided to try out to be a tee-totaller myself. The fan who ran onto the pitch to confront rival players found to his surprise that the police were still in their senses. He must have thought that the men in the fluorescent yellow jackets whose duty was to uphold law and order would be somewhere in the wave of red jumping up and down and singing in joy. After all, the entire world inside the theatre of dreams and comebacks had just broken into pandemonium and majority was celebrating the woes of others. As the dust settled on the day, a part of the town was being painted red while the rest was feeling the blues. Never before had I seen the blue part of Manchester and the red part of Manchester been so equally matched. The red was always strong, while the blues were as good as non-existent, only surfacing once in a while so that people wouldn't forget it. Surprises, however, come when you least expect them. Else they wouldn't be called surprises. So surprisingly enough things have changed a lot over the last year and now the blues are big, strong, here to stay and as permanent as the petrol based cash filled pocket of sheiks seem to be. The ‘greatest derby ever’ between red and blue, like any other war, was determined by the battles between its players. Some players always win, some win a few and lose a few, some rather be showmen and don’t care about the trophies (or at least pretend to be so) and then there are the others who keep trying harder and harder than anyone else in the hope of winning one day only to fail, fail and keep failing. In hindsight the difference between success and failure comes down to the decisions one took and try as much as one may to not regret ones decisions, regrets are inevitable. Wrong decisions mean that one ends up in the blue half, but it doesn't mean the end necessarily. The only thing that matters then is how one responds to the situation one is faced with. For the ones who are going to fail again and again, probably, the only chance they have to win something is to not let their shoulders drop and to be able to move on ahead in the hope that there will be that one second chance some other day and to keep preparing oneself for that second chance if and when it comes along.