Being a Sport

It is my belief that within the normal span of our lifetimes, each of us is given an opportunity, one chance, a single calendar day to announce our arrival and prove the world what we really are capable of. And for each one of us, this blessing may arrive in a different disguise.

For some, it could be a heroic day on the battlefield while for some on a cricket field. It could be an office Monday for one or a box office Friday for another. An Olympic medal for a chosen few and perhaps, a school sports medal for its future recipients.

Sports Day at school was one such event that occurred every year with a promise of a fair chance to all who wished to make a mark amongst their peers. It gave the bullied a chance to set some scores straight and the chronic backbencher to prove why he deserves something other than canework and homework. It gave the Romeos a chance to sweep their would-like-to-be Juliets of their feet if they managed to swipe a medal or two. All this in full view of the entire school fraternity – maximum coverage.

Nevertheless, the significance of this day to my school life was as much as of the release of a saucy C-grade film to a Zen monk. The thing was, at a very early age, I had earned the ability to look at things from a higher karmic level. This allowed me to gauge the frivolity of such puerile gatherings and avoid them at will.

Okay, that wasn’t exactly the case.

Truth be told, how much I might have wanted to, I could never really find myself rubbing shoulders with the Sports Day hunks who could have easily made a fortune if they ever decided to sell all the metal they had earned for scrap. Plainly said, I could never muster the courage or the motivation to put myself through the ordeal of early morning jogs, unsympathetic diet regimes and truck load of tendon splitting exercises. Nonetheless, I always enjoyed watching the show from the sidelines with a bottle of Coke and a pack of popcorn for company.

Back in the autumn of 1996, it was that time of the year again. My mood was set for a similar showdown. Like a kid knowing the circus was about to come to his town soon, I had begun to anticipate the antics of a handful brave souls who would soon be running, hopping, skipping, jumping, throwing and catching their wits out over few circular pieces of metal, when...

"Sports Day is just around the corner!"

It had been a little more than a month since S14 had ‘moved in’ with me. Apart from the occasional tantrum thrown over a Math problem solving session gone problematic or some homework assignment not done as it was supposed to be or not done at all, I seemed to be enjoying her presence at large.

"What? Oh is it," I said, wondering why that was a reason to be so cheery about.

Though I had to admit that anything compared to the sight of our Science teacher prancing to and fro with a human skull in one and a thigh bone in the other hand was a matter of pure joy, I quite didn’t expect her to be so psyched about the annual Sports Day event. I mean, what did a bossy, geography-loving bookworm like her know anything about having fun? Huh.

Perhaps this year they might have declared a holiday for all non-participants, I thought.

"So, will you be participating?" S14 enquired, looking at me intently, her voice barely reaching my eardrums thanks to the skeleton show that was taking place a few rows ahead.

"Participating? Like in an event? Well, I really don-"

"I like guys who kind of sporty, you know," S14 interrupted, smiling cutely.

"I am," I said and paused, using the time to wonder what on earth was I doing, "participating, I guess."

"You are? Hey that’s really cool!" S14 chirped, sounding as excited as if I had just told her that I happened to be Ben Johnson’s personal trainer.

"Yeah, I mean, like every year, this year too I would be participating of course," I said, basking in my artificial glory.

Okay, I know I wasn’t correct, not even a bit, but then, what the heck? I could have even admitted to juggling chainsaws blindfolded while balancing on a rope tied over a pond infested by crocodiles, if that meant S14 showering compliments at me.

"So, what kind of sports are you into?" S14 asked eagerly.

"Uh, I am basically into the running and sprinting stuff, you know?" I said, using some time to think.

"You mean track and field events? Like athletics?" S14 asked, sounding tad suspicious of my claims.

"Yes, exactly, athletics!" I said, visibly glad you have been reminded of the term. "So you knew the word, eh? I just thought you might not know it hence I..."

"I just happen to know a few things here and there. I am pretty new to this field you see," S14 admitted, nodding her head.

Ha! Miss. Pretty-New-To-This-Field... You clearly have no idea how brand new I am to the concept of running for no particular reason, I thought and smiled to myself.

"I’ve been participating for only about three years now, that too only when my last boyfriend insisted that I should."

Something seemed to have exploded in my cranium - as our Science teacher told it was also called.

Three years? Last boyfriend? I suddenly found myself in a state of acute bafflement. Which of these two dilemmas deserved greater and immediate attention?

"P-Participating for the last three years?" I asked, picking the former as it seemed less personal and more relevant to the situation at hand.

"Yes, I know I should have started off early," S14 said, "I’ve only managed to represent my school at the track event twice before we had to move here, you know?"

What does this girl eat, I couldn’t help but wonder.

"My last boyfriend was the school sports champ, and hence I said I like guys who are into sports," she said, smiling slyly.

Now, I must admit I was starting to lose my patience over this ‘my last boyfriend’ thing. If her vocabulary allowed her to think of words like ‘athletics’, why couldn’t she just replace that term with something suitable? Like say, a ‘moron’ or a ‘twerp’?

"Hmm, that’s very good. I like people who are into sports as well," I said, hesitatingly.

"Really? Who is your favorite athlete?"

"My favorite athlete?" I asked, suddenly reminded of a similar predicament that I was in previously.

Now, what was this game called? Naming the Athletes? Why couldn’t we just stick to pushing pens around the desk or drawing x and zeroes like the good old times?

"Shall I tell you my favorite athlete?" S14 hurriedly offered, as our Science teacher replaced her last two skeletal artifacts with one that seemed to have originated from the groin area.

"Please do," I said, relieved.

"I just like Marion Jones! Don’t you like Marion Jones?"

"Oh yes, me too!" I said, determined to milk the given opportunity dry, "I totally dig Marion Jones. I think he’s a wonderful athlete, what skill, what pace, what-"

"Marion's a female."

"Yeah, what female, what... what?"

"I know what you are trying to do," S14 frowned, her voice turning into something that distinctly reminded me of not completing my homework on time. She had also choosen to look away from me and at the piece of groin.

"You do? I mean, I don't really get what you-"

"You remind me of my last boyfriend, he used to speak just like you."

Okay, I might not be all Mr. Clean here but I certainly didn’t deserve to be compared to that ‘my-last-boyfriend’ specimen. While S14 kept whispering to herself, I imagined beating the crap out of that jerk with the groin bone or the pelvic girdle as I soon learnt it was called.

"Each of you are the same, I should have know this before, I am a fool to think that you could be different, but no, you all are-"

"S14... S14..." I had to interrupt her, "I really can’t hear or understand what you are trying to say, could you please be a little audible?"

"I am saying I don’t want to talk to you. You must be a big Carl Lewis or a Ben Johnson fan but that does not mean you make fun of Marion," S14 hissed.

Fantastic... With very little effort, I had managed to hurt her feminist instincts.

Now what?

(To be continued in the next post...)

1996

Standard Seven, in my opinion (Also proven by a kick-ass scientific study. Sacchi, meine padha hain), is the most challenging year in a student’s life. The reasons, as I will soon put forth, are a handful. Let’s start by looking at what happens on the ‘educational’ front.

Normally, anyone who has ever bothered to check the syllabus when s/he entered standard seven must have at least for once played with the thought of exterminating the author and his next five generations. If you ask me, I think such a thought process comes pretty naturally to anyone who 1) happens to share my levels of interest in anything remotely scholastic, 2) hero worships the Chainsaw Massacre guy and owns a pet python or 3) both.

Thus, unless you were immune to all forms of pain or happened to drool over things like empirical formulae and the Pythagoras Theorem, you too will probably recollect going "Photo what frigging synthesis?!!" when you first turned the pages of your syllabi, seventh standard and every standard.

The second and perhaps the most important point is the fact that by the time you reach standard seven and happen to be a guy, the world seems to be a lot lesser nice place to live in.

Apart from the thing with the hormones that is constantly playing havoc with your age old beliefs about girls being a source of unbridled nuisance, you suddenly find yourself uncomfortably placed in a 'semi-kid' kind of a state, a lawless territory where its residents are labeled by the degree of confusedness on their sparsely moustached faces.

Contrarily, this does a world of wonders to the female population, especially for someone on M34I26S34’s growth path. Thanks to the hormonal thing (which works totally in their favor) that I briefly touched upon in the paragraph above, they are suddenly inundated with buying-your-bus- ticket and helping- you-with-your-homework offers.

Hence considering the fact that I carried fairly normal tendencies and was as hormonized as anyone else, it shouldn’t go against me if I told you that I happened to be one of the guys in the class who steered their attention towards the door, when they stepped into our classroom… the exchange students... from a formerly alien part of the world called Canada.

Pink looks hot on girls. This is probably the other thing to learn by the time you hit standard seven. I learnt this when I saw her wearing the color, partially eclipsed by our class teacher and the other girl she was accompanied with.

Standing amidst her escorts, she looked visibly shy and mildly perturbed by the hustle she had generated. Perhaps, she had planned to coolly walk into the class and hope no one would give two hoots about it. So much for wishful thinking, ha!

This is India, young ladies. You come from anyplace minutely foreign and you WILL be stared at!

“Hello children! Please join me in welcoming S14X17C and E12X17C! They have come from Canada and will be studying with us. I hope you will make them feel at home!” the teacher announced to our largely awestricken class.

Her wish seemed to have been heard rather instantly, as some of us dived into the task of wiping the dust and our partners off their seats, making place for the Canadian goddesses. While others, including me, restricted by the lack of courage than anything else, only managed to construct inviting expressions which bordered on the risk of appearing lecherous if overdone and pray earnestly that they might sit in the adjacent row or perhaps the row adjacent to the next two rows.

Feel at home? Hell yeah!

PS: Thanks to my teacher's rather vague form of introduction, it didn't strike me at first which one of X17C sisters was the girl in pink. I, of course, did manage to figure that out eventually.

Present Ma'am!

Back in school, the second strongest reason - the first being the natural lack of focus and motivation - to help me find solace as an underperforming flag-bearer of the underperformers, was a distinct team of faculty members.

Akin to a baton-wielding jail superintendent, working zealously towards making life as difficult and regretful for its resident inmates, these ‘givers of education’ strived to achieve a similar result.

To mention a few… there was that slap-happy Hindi professor, who had the tendency to whack the living daylights of anyone caught half-yawning during his awe-inspiring, post-lunch lectures. One neatly landed blow from this guy and you had the germs residing in your dental cavities dive into coma. Man, this guy could make a full-fledged Sunny paaji’s water-pump uprooting ‘Dhai kilo ka Haath’ assault feel like a peacock feather caressing your butt cheeks in comparison. Believe me, I speak from experience.

Then, we had Miss P58T67S - our PT instructor. This lady could make Hitler laugh his moustache off with her grammar-no-bare usage of the English language. I distinctly remember her telling us once, rather fondly, that she had ‘two daughters and both were girls’. I tell you, nothing was more daunting than conversing with her and yet maintaining a straight face. (Now you know whom to blame if you find something funny with my writing… Undesirably funny that is.)

Last, but not even remotely the least, was the Biology professor, who perhaps out of sheer affection for her subject, always found striking similarities between the animal kingdom and her class. Thus, on a given day, you could hear her calling someone a ‘dim-witted buffoon’, an ‘undernourished flea parasite’, a ‘super-sized amoeba’ or when highly agitated, a ‘bottom-of-the-food-chain dwelling, filter-feeding zooplankton’.

However, amidst and in spite of these wonderful reasons to get up every morning and head to school, there were few people who helped me sustain my belief in the Indian educational system.

The first being our librarian Miss L33I66B, who also doubled up as an invigilator during our exams – a favor which I will never forget. Apart from being a very kind and a gentle lady by nature, she was a deeply religious person as well. This, probably, prompted her to do nothing but softly announce “God is watching!” when she managed to find someone cheating in class. Undoubtedly, I owe her a lot to help me wade through most of my math papers.

And then of course was Miss S22H25L … my English and class teacher for standard six. She was easily the only person who deserved the title of ‘Miss’ as the rest were either married or even appeared to have married off their grand-children.

Ah, Miss S22H25L… She was way not married and was way not like the rest of them! She was, as I fondly recollect, my inspiration to take a bath before I left for school. She was, amidst the jaw-rattling, language-murdering and animal-comparing teachers, my inspiration to learn. She was the reason why I waited impatiently, one roll number at a time and all forty of them, to watch her look into the attendance registry and call out my number with that pleasing smile on her face.

“Present Ma’am!” I would scream, raising my hand with sheer delight.

Much to the horror of my fellow classmates, I began participating in debates, elocution competitions, roll playing activities, debates, quizzes and absolutely anything that had to with English and Miss S22H25L. I began answering ad-hoc questions; some which had even left the chronic toppers staring at the blackboard with gaping stupor.

(Now is perhaps a good time to reiterate to the post where I had spoken a bit about my roll number and my English marks. You probably must have realized by now why these two could have been the possible exemptions. Okay, back to this post.)

Yes, things were changing and they were changing fast. My perplexed twelve year old heart was finding it increasingly difficult to come in terms with this new and totally uncharted feeling. A feeling which by any sixth grader standards was as good as unlimited access to video games and toffee bars minus the need go to school or eat veggies for like a month.

But, as it happens with all earnest, one-sided love stories, the girl is fled away by a moustache-sporting, car-driving, MBA-holding, bank-managing guy… While the secret admirer (read me), the one who has tones of silent adoration for her in his bespectacled eyes (Okay, I had a number. Who doesn’t?) is left with well, just all by his self.

I learnt about Miss S22H25L’s engagement when she gleefully broke the news to the class and even resorted to distributing éclairs like it was an occasion worth celebrating. Citing an incessant pain in my tooth, I plainly declined from picking the sweet when she turned at my desk. For a moment or two, I felt she might have smelled the rat. Perhaps she must have noticed me munching a toffee bar right out of my tiffin box during the recess break. Nonetheless, she never made any fuss about it and walked on. And, so did I…

Slowly but steadily, I began to trudge back into my original self. The painful process of self-recuperation had begun. Questions were answered, but only when asked to. Hand was raised, but only to seek permission to attend a nature’s call. Bath was taken, but only when mum threatened.

By the time I entered standard seven, Miss S22H25L was honeymooning in Shimla. We had a new English teacher at our disposal. But, post Miss S22H25L, things never remained the same with English teachers. Thanks to my first and what could have been my last female-liking experience, I was months away turning into a hard-wired, tin-hearted, lifeless robot. Things would have pretty much headed in that direction, if life hadn’t met an abrupt diversion.

The year was 1996 and mathematics had just become stratospherically tougher. But it wasn’t something that had exactly caught my attention. It was something or rather someone else.