Goal-den Moments

A friend of mine and I were drinking tea the other day and I happened to mention that I had a strange journey towards understanding football in my life. As I elaborated on my statement, his laughter bubbled up every few minutes, interrupting my stories with loud bursts of uncontrollable giggles. At the end of it, he was so thoroughly entertained that he suggested I go to tell the story to other people too. Hence, this blog post. Now, many of you may not be football-inclined or literate (you'll see that I'm not either) but the experiences will be relatable, I'm sure.

My journey with football began with a game. No, not running around, but a computer game. Every time I came down to Bangalore for my vacations, we'd visit my grand-aunt and while everyone were busy talking, I would go sit in front of the computer. Now, we're talking about almost 10 years ago, so when I say computer, I'm talking about the large, bulky grandfather of our sleek laptops: the desktop PC with a Pentium 2 CPU, the computers they still use in government offices (because the government office is the land time forgot; a place so slow, even Internet Explorer would fear to ask to be the default browser). There was only one game on it, FIFA 98. Now, this wasn't even the whole game, just the demo. Hence you were only allowed to play one game, which turned out to be Arsenal vs. Manchester United and you could only choose to be Arsenal. As a result of all this intensely one-sided time spent, I developed a hatred for the name Manchester United even before I knew what football was and what the Premier League was.

Later, when I joined school, I met another friend who was a big Manchester United fan. But by this time, I had completely forgotten all my football knowledge gained over playing that one game over and over again, so he was successfully able to convert me into a Manchester United fan by shoving information at me at breakneck speed. Also, he took it upon himself to educate me about the Premier and spent hours quizzing me on the teams and their home grounds. Suffice to say, I learnt all I could simply because it was impossible to hold a conversation with anyone else in an all-boys school without being interested in football. A similar scene saw me develop my tennis knowledge and favour Nadal and hate Federrer, but that story is for another day. My interest in the sport on the field, however, did nothing to help me curry favour with my classmates and hence I was relegated to be the goalkeeper, where I could do minimal damage to the team. I have no qualms in admitting that I was terrible at it, refusing to dive and dirty/tear my pants. I constantly complained about it too, so much so that one day, the class acquiesced and let me move beyond my restricted area to be what they call a 'floating goalie'. We lost 5-0 that day and I stopped one person from scoring, mostly because I crashed into him. That pretty much put an end to my dreaming of doing more on the field than move my hands around. Soon, on the sports day, I won a medal for the relay race, something I still can't believe to this day. I guess I know where my love for running came from.

With time, I learnt more about football, culminating in me watching my first full match on TV (the 2006 WC final). Even then, I missed the one event everyone spoke about after match, the Zidane headbutt, because I decided that I was hungry. Just bad luck, I guess. The Premier League is no longer a mystery to me and I can contribute certain inputs when needed, though for the longest time, I though Arsenal was named after Arsene Wenger, because he seemed old enough to have been with the team since its inception. But I learnt from that mistake soon enough and become proficient at contributing to discussions with my meager knowledge. The WC this time around was a better experience and I got through it with no major incidents. But I still wonder sometimes what would happen if I took the field to play the game. Injuries are immanent, I think...

Ciao!

So, I’m going to construct a story for you. No, it doesn’t involve walls and stuff, just….a structure. You know, like Saussure said. It has characters, just like any other story and it involves two people. Or maybe some more people….. But there’s definitely people in it. Yes, like every other story there that exists. There are scenes that keep shifting, a little mind playing around and in it all, some comedians who keep the audience distracted while other stuff goes on behind the stage. Like changing and rehearsing and doing people in small rooms, made even more cumbersome by the tight spaces and tight clothes and loose morals. But that’s show business. The lights are supposed to come on, the guys are supposed to come on and the women have to play their parts, just like any other play you’ll see in the world. The trees are all green….too green if you ask me, but that’s okay. Nature takes care of the rest. Everyone just sits back and watches the show. Eats some popcorn and laughs at how stupid people look doing things that they wouldn’t do in real life….unless this is some realist drama, then people do exactly what they do in real life, but the stage just gives them some glamour while doing it. That guy in the big wig was right, even if he did dress like he was going for some flower show, “All the world’s a stage, all the men and women merely players”. The curtains will fall all you’ll all go home, sit with a bottle of scotch and stare at the glass while thinking about life. That’s how all stories are created, right? With a little time alone and a mind that roams free and without fear, like that old guy from India with the long beard said. You’ll keep refilling the glass and with every new one, you’ll see another story. Soon, the glass will be put back and you’ll rest your head back and start dreaming. There, the stories will start constructing themselves and become more you and you could ever be. That’s how stories happen. Wake up, pen it down and you’ll have a masterpiece. Till you drink it away and burn it all when you go mad that is. Never really trusted that pen and paper anyway….