Building Character

It's been well over a month since I posted anything, and I lay the blame squarely upon my own shoulders. I believe in taking responsibility for one's actions (and inaction) and this is the time for me to stand up and be counted. Or read, as is the case with a blog.

A major reason for my not posting anything in a while is because, well, I haven't got anything going on in my life worth posting about. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise that even for this post, I go back more than 2 months for my inspiration. It has been on my mind for a while to write something about this, and yet, I've not felt like it all this time. So here goes.

As all tales begin, this one too begins in a far far land where the sky was blue, the rivers were clear and the grass was green and available in plenty within walking distance for the subjects of the kingdom. And I realize that that's about how far I can carry the whole analogy thing, so suffice to say that I'm referring to NIT-Trichy where we (G3W) had gone down for their annual cultural fest, Festember. We managed to make quite a wad between us totally, but then, it isn't always about the money is it? No, sometimes it's about what the title says.

The event in question was Scrabble, and along with my illustrious cricketer-first, scrabbler-next partner Naresh, I daresay we gave ourself quite a chance of placing in the event. The prelims were written, and as is usual it was the standard mixture of Scrabble boards, a bit of anagrams and the like. Around this point of time, we were doing 9-5 working hours, so most prelims were a blur, with the next event already coming up to think about. But again, prelims qualifying was never supposed to be a problem. Character-challenge Moment One.

As the papers were being totaled to find out who the 6 finalists would be, the score we had put up seemed to be sliding steadily and easily backwards. 5 teams ahead already and quite a bunch of papers left. We watched as each one fell way short, or just short of our total and kept remembering to breathe in the interim. It came down to one last paper, and as their total kept getting bigger, our chances of qualifying got slimmer. But you know, I wouldn't put this post up if we didn't have something to do with the finals as well. And so, it gives me great pleasure to reveal that this last paper fell short of ours by 1 point. 149 to our 150. Game On.

You would think that that was the inspiration-moment that you see in most movies - like in Gilli (Athadu for my Telugu friends) when Trisha misses her flight to America to come and watch Vijay's Kabadi match. Sadly, that wasn't to be, as our prelims paper didn't quite generate the same feelings in us as Trisha, nor is Scrabble Kabadi. The first round in the finals was Clabbers, which, if you are clever you might notice, is an anagram of Scrabble. And hence, all anagrams of any word were allowed in this round. To put it simply, you could play gtocziy on the board, since it is a perfectly valid anagram of Zygotic. This whole messing up concept was looking pretty fine till the last two moves. Actually, they became the last two moves plainly because they were 'Bingos' which is where you use up all the tiles in your rack, and get a 50-point bonus for doing so. Ergo, the opposition finishes off 14 tiles in two moves, gets a 100 points outta nowhere, and it's a 120-odd points defeat in the first game. This is bad in any circumstance, but it is definitely not good in a three-match round-robin. Character-challenge Moment Two.

And so, we go into the second match, to play the other team at the bottom. This is normal Scrabble, and all is fine until, 'Bingo' again. For them, of course. I even remember the word, bloody Chromite, I didn't know Chromite was even a compound, let alone a word! After making a mental note to brush up on my Chemistry, we calculated our total deficit, including the first match, and saw ourselves staring at -148 points. This is where the straight faces and the hammering hearts come out. Also, Character-challenge Moment Three.

Now, there are two ways to get yourself out of a hole. One is to keep digging, and find yourself going deeper inside, or you can stop digging, take a deep breath, and then try to pull the other person also into the hole. Which is precisely what we did. First, some prudent use of the Js and the Xs got us ahead in the match, and then playing the vaguest two-letter words that both of us knew definitely existed, in the hope of getting challenged. We made quite a bit of free 5-pointers in them challenges, not to mention keeping track of their time down to the precise micro-second, so that they ran out of it quite a while before the tiles were done. Excess time carried a penalty too, and all things considered, we won the game, and got ourselves a good 4o-odd points positives in the bargain. Here's where the three-match round robin concept got useful. Only 2 teams were on two wins, and they were going to play each other. So, only one person ends up on 3 wins. That left the winner of our next match, ironically with the same opposition we had played Clabbers with, guaranteed a third place, with the possibility of a second if one of the top 2 got mauled by the other. Thankfully, one of the top 2, was Nush and Sandeep, the other IIT team. It isn't Rocket Science, but if they beat their opponents handsomely, and we beat ours as handsomely, that second place was ours.

It's not like BPL's Soccer Sunday, where, when the Big Four are playing each other, everyone knows what's going on in the other match. Here, you concentrate on your game, and don't even hope that things are going fine in the other match. The game proceeded quite satisfactorily, not a huge margin, but we kept our noses ahead. It didn't look like we were heading for a big win, whereas we definitely needed one, to wipe out our overall deficit of -90. Slowly though, the previous game's strategy of deep breath-think clear-pull other person in began to work. There's nothing quite as beautiful as closing the board out with 'ug' and 'ch' and 'li' and leaving the opposition nothing to work with. Which worked quite effectively.We did not have a Bingo at any point in the game, or for that matter, the tournament. Yet, the closed-board game was bringing in the 20s and 30s quite well, and that was fine by us. As the tiles ran out, our lead kept getting ever so bigger. Eventually, it was done. Bingo-less, without any fancy words on triples or double, we finished with a 120 point positive from the game, a total of +30 overall. But was it enough?

We needn't have bothered. Nush and Sandeep had decimated the other team by around 150 points. All we needed to do was win, and we would've got second. As it turned out, we did much more than that, thank you very much.

It may not be the Natwest Finals Yuvraj-Kaif chase. It may not be United's 5-3 second-half demolition of Spurs from 0-3 down. But it was a comeback nevertheless, and comebacks are always sweet. For what it does is, it builds character. Tenacity, hope, self-belief and such. As I said before, it's not always about the money.

However, 700 bucks a head does go quite a long way in ensuring that the Character is Built.

Anticipation

Indrajit was beginning to feel a bit fidgety. Sure, there was still a good two hours to go for his 10th-birthday party to start, but there was absolutely no sign of any preparation for the same around the house. No doubt his parents had everything arranged and Dad would swing into action as soon as he returned from work in an hour, but this total lack of activity was disconcerting. Everything was not well, and Indrajit thought he probably knew why.

It was just a minor incident, and it was not even entirely his fault. A week ago he had been playing as usual in the front yard. His usual 'game' consisted of throwing a ball at the wall, and then batting it when it came back on the rebound. He was a disciplined batsman, restricting himself to playing in the 'V' since there was the family car always parked in the square leg position. Hence, he also alway threw the ball in such a manner that the rebound reached him at perfect driving length. On this day, and this fateful 'delivery', the ball had slipped out of his hand during the throw and hit the wall slower than usual. As the ball came back, he watched it pitch well in front, and bounce towards his chest... and his moment of madness. The ball grew in size as it came towards him, and an image of Yuvraj dismissively pulling a ball flashed through his mind. Whack, the horizontal ball dispatched the rubber ball perfectly square. Right into the front windscreen of the car.

That probably could've been avoided, he thought even as he laid part of the blame on Yuvraj for giving him such a beautiful shot to emulate. Perhaps his parents had canceled his party for that? No, he had clearly heard them talk about 'tomorrow's party' to each other last night. Moreover, they hadn't even be very angry when they had seen the windscreen broken. Sure, they had said something like You will understand what it feels like when you lose something similar, but he was pretty sure he wasn't getting a car anytime soon. He smiled a bit to himself at this clever bit of reasoning. As he turned away smiling, his eyes passed over the latch of the door, where all his presents were always kept till the cake was cut. And he froze in mid-turn. The bike!

The only reason Indrajit had been looking forward to his 10th birthday more than any other was because of The Bike. That shiny, red thing with the high seat and curved handlebars that he had fallen in love with at first sight. That thing which his parents had promised him for his 10th birthday when he had begged them for it a month ago. That thing which should be behind that latched door right now. That thing which would be something similar to the car. That thing which, hence, he could lose.

His mouth went dry. They couldn't do this to him. It was such a minor infraction, surely not worth taking away the bike. But it also made perfect sense. He would've noticed at least a small sign that a big bicycle was being moved around in the house. No wrapping paper, no tell-tale tyre marks of cycles being rolled around. And the subdued preparations for the party, after all, no parent likes to deny their child's fervent wish. And yet, what must be done, must be done. Must it?

The time for the party never seemed to come. The two hours was the worst period of time ever in Indrajit's till-now-uneventful life. His mind told him that it had been done, the cycle had been denied to him, and yet his heart failed to accept it. He was just reading into that minor incident too much, hadn't his parents been calm enough about it? Or had they let him off lightly because they were going to do something much worse? He wished he could just burst into that little room with the latched door and end the confusion once and for all. But one of his parents were either always hovering around the room or hovering around him, getting him ready for the party. He absentmindedly slipped into his new clothes, all the while staring at the latch, the door. It was all good for Superman to have X-ray vision, but the people who really needed it were 10-year old boys on the throes of an early-life crisis. He shook his head disgustedly at what he though was an unfair distribution of superpowers.

The guests started trickling in, and Indrajit noticed during moments when he actually looked that the decorations had in fact been organized as well as the last two years, if not better. People crowded around to wish him, hug him, shake hands with him, pinch his cheeks... and his mind registered none of it. His heart felt like it was being squeezed, like he couldn't breathe through the crush of the burdensome wait. He smiled weakly towards his Mom and Dad as he cut the cake and gave them each a piece after the Birthday Song had been sung. That's it, done, let's get to the door, his inner voice screamed, but Indrajit was too well brought-up to let any such thoughts out.

"Shall we?" his Dad asked, holding out his hand for Indrajit to grab. He nodded determinedly, and allowed himself to be led towards the door. His heart was hammering away wildly now, he was surprised that everyone in the room couldn't actually hear it. He tried to read something from his father's expression, but there was no expression there to read anything from. The door loomed in front of him, and Indrajit was sure his heart rate had hit 150. The latch opened and the door flew open.

Nothing, darkness. Darkness that is, in the front part of the room. But at the back, where the light from the shaded window streamed through just enough, he caught a glint of red. He took a tentative step forward, all the while following the outline of the glint of red. His mental faculties confirmed to him that it was indeed what his heart hoped it was and he ran forward with a yelp of surprise. He knelt beside The Bike, running his hand over the perfectly sized medals, moving to the tyres, the rear mud-guards and stood up to reach the seat. As he touched the seat, all the hammering and squeezing his heart had been subjected to finally gave way, and Indrajit put his head down on the seat and started sobbing uncontrollably. He let all the tension of the past two hours release itself through his tears and finally got up and turned to his slightly concerned parents. Then with a broad smile pasted across his teary-eyed face, he flew into the arms of his parents, who had now gone from being concerned to bemused, and whispered into their ears,
Yes, I understand, what it feels like.

It's that time of the year again...

Well, it's back. Bigger, better and bluer than ever before.

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Life is a journey, and those who don't read, haven't traveled at all.

A wee bit o' celebration

It has nothing to do with the game itself, and yet it's one of the most fascinating, and at times controversial moments in football. Quite a few players have their own, unique post-goal celebration, while others just give in to the mood of the moment, and let lose. Especially tight matches which bear goals in the 90th minute are mostly likely to produce a shirt-off celebration along with/followed by running all around the pitch a couple of times. Now, of course, taking your shirt off leads to a straight yellow card, and that's enough for most players to be restrained from doing a Dada-on-Lord's-terrace. Pity, really, because I always thought that it is only in the moment of greatest ecstasy after scoring a goal that you actually reveal your inner self. Literally.

Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, otherwise known as Kaka has probably the most recognizable celebrations on the football field. As the ball ripples the net, Kaka tears off to raise his arms and head towards heaven in an obvious gesture of gratitude to God. But for what? To answer this question, two important facts need to be stated here.
1. Kaka was a virgin till he got married, which, for a footballer at his level, is near sacrilege.

2. When he eventually did get married, he got himself this...

From here we work on presumptions, but based on the above two reasons, especially the very strong second one, the following theory can be stated as being nearly accurate. As most of you might have figured, Kaka is obviously not a virgin anymore, but just to make things interesting, let us suppose he has some sort of arrangement with his wife. Like if he scores in the game, then that night... you get the message. So, without sullying Kaka's character too much, I think it's a safe conclusion that whenever he scores (on the football pitch), he thanks God for his score (off the football pitch). His is a standing example of how there is a woman behind every successful man (or under. Or above. Whatever works for him man).

Along the same lines would be the celebrations of England's answer to Brazil's Kaka, Frank Lampard. I think it's a midfielder thing, raising the arm towards heaven, because strikers almost always point towards the midfielder who provided them with the final pass. While Lampard's is not so much of an obvious sign of gratitude to the skies, he does precede the raising of his hand towards the sky with a kiss on his left hand. Without using too much rocket science, it becomes clear that that is the hand that holds the engagement ring, and the person who put it there is...
Frankie L is not so much a good boy as Kaka, because he's already had a baby girl with his lady before marriage, but he clearly values the ring on his hand, so we presume his intentions are honourable.

Another distinct, and unique celebration will have to be Bolton Wanderers and France striker Nicholas Anelka's. After each of his usually stunning goals, Anelka holds his hands in front of his chest, with the thumbs interlocked and the rest of the fingers outstretched, forming a sort of a butterfly. This is probably the most confounding celebration to decipher, and the striker himself has said that it's a private joke between him and his French friends. That leaves us with only one option- that India's exalted low-cost carrier, Air Deccan had, at some point, been involved in Anelka's life, what with their logo being something similar, except that the thumbs are not interlocked. A probable story is that sometime, while traveling incognito, Anelka missed a flight from Mumbai to France, just because his connecting flight from Calcutta to Mumbai on Air Deccan got, as usual, delayed. From then on, Anelka's celebration, directed at Air Deccan and not his French friends as he claims, probably means to say 'If you could connect your two hands, you'd probably succeed in making people catch their connecting flights'

The controversial celebration of Robbie Fowler going to the touchline and acting as if he sniffed Cocaine shall not be dissected in great detail here as it is a one-off and not a customary thing. And thank God for Robbie that it was only a one-off, the league didn't take kindly to his endorsement of the non-drinking variety of Coke.

As sheer cheek goes, one last celebration has to be mentioned. Portugese sensation Nani, who joined Manchester United this season has been expressly banned by Sir Alex Ferguson from showing off his gymnastic skills on the football pitch. Therefore, in all of United's games in Asia, and other practice matches, the forwards flip-backward flip-handless backward flip was kept dutifully inside the locker by Nani. But then the league started, and United got off to a bad start, with a goal drought hitting last season's top scorers. In such a situation, staring at another 0-0 in the game against Tottenham, Nani came up with a blistering 25-yard strike to give United the win. After the goal, Nani pointedly asks his teammates to hold off, and goes on to do his elaborate gymnastic routine, ending with the handless back flip. The perceptive camera-man zoomed straightaway towards Sir Alex, to see his reaction. He remained all smiles, celebrating the goal. But then, cameras can't enter the locker room.

P.S: Kaka is a devout Christian. In 2000, after an accident in the pool, he was threatened by paralysis, and hence an end to his career. He recovered fully from that, an act he still attributes to God. The gratitude to the skies after every goal is mostly with regard to this. But then, who says you can't be grateful for two different things, eh?