various rambling thoughts: The Game for Life…

World Cup is gone…long live World Cups!!!

Its only been a few days since the void has started to get filled up..the void that inevitably comes after the end of what is arguably the most awaited one month in four years. A month when TVs are switched on no matter what the hour is and you hold your breath as fame and infamy exchange hands within seconds…

World Cup South Africa 2010 was the sixth world cup for me and over the years, no matter where I have been or what I have been doing, the one month becomes a time when nothing beyond the action in front of me matters. I must have sounded like a zombie on the phone with G since at that point of time my heart beat with Forlan and his magical left foot…

In life, we have various yardsticks with which we mark our time and which we use to look back and say ‘Aha’, that's when I was there and did that.

Four years is a long time for someone who is growing up…a time when circumstances around you are shed and you come out as a completely different person. Your thoughts and opinions about the world around you and the people in it change. You have moments when you grow up suddenly, you have heartbreaks, get over them (sometimes overnight), you read books that change you for life, you meet people who mark you for life and you discover things about yourself that you may or may not like…

But in the end, when the next world cup comes around, you have done your time and its time sit and cheer for your team. You also realize that like so much of your memories so many cherished players have become a part of the past.

For me, World cup started with Maradona and the Roger Milla dance, a world cup that I ended with tears along with Maradona. I remember the incredible vibe around my house as the tournament started. Its my great luck that I was born in a family where everyone watched sports together (especially two things – World Cup and the other – Ganguly batting!!) and that was like a virus that I caught onto…

That was Italia 1990 and the world cup that I remember wolfing down magazines (this was 8 years before internet came into the house and atleast 10 years before any more-than-humble surfing can be done) which offered any information about what was happening around me. I remember reading and re-reading about the heroes of the past – the Peles, Garrinchas, Cryuffs, Lev Yashins, Kempes, De Stefanoes, Eusebios, Pushkas ; the heartbreaks of the past – Netherlands’ defeats in consecutive finals with arguably the best team, Hungary’s defeat in the finals after being unbeaten for four years and subsequent decline after the revolution, Garrinchas death in penury and so on…

By the time the next one came up, old heroes had slipped and new ones came up, probably my first lesson that sports taught me about life – things change and we must go on. Milla’s dance was gone and Maradona was soon to go, in shame. Aryton Senna was to go too, in a car crash. That world cup was to be of Romarios and the dance was to belong to Bebeto and the tears belonged to Roberto Baggio…

I saw that world cup half in Calcutta and half in my home. My dad, uncle (who had gotten married in between the cups) and brother stayed up to watch the finals and I remember recording the final on VCR. Baggio’s thundering kick which missed the post by a mile will probably always remain indelible in my mind – a sign of how you can be the best player in the world and yet be remembered forever for one bad penalty kick. The golden cup is unforgiving to those who fall by the wayside…

1998 France was the time when it was my tenth boards. But studies were to take a complete break as Zidane unleashed his magic to power the Les Blues to their first world cup, the first new champion since 1978. This time the tears were Brazilian and glory was of the team that signified ethnic unity in a former imperial power. Almost a fitting end to the last world cup of the century which saw its first in 1930 between two world wars!

2002 S Korea and Japan. I was done with my school long back and had started on a good boy’s career path– engineering after a hard fought battle with various entrance exams. There was a creeping feeling that there were too many distractions in life, time seemed short, a good career seemed suddenly a holy grail to a perfect life and life seemed to be suddenly in too much of a hurry.

Yet, everything was swept aside as time stood still for that one month. The hero of the last millennium, France, went out shamed in the group stage without scoring a goal and Brazilians and Ronaldo had the last laugh. Asia came into its own with S Korea reaching the semis defeating Italy and Spain. Africa again flattered to deceive as Senegal went out in a heartbreaking golden goal decision. Asia had its first world cup and Indians had to be content with the knowledge that India had once qualified back in the 1950s.

2006 Germany saw me with my first job after engineering in Kolkata (Cities, even if names, too change between world cups!!) working away as the greatly glorified job of being the genius third world technical problem solver for US MNCs, at a company that prided itself at having no Indian clients and whose employees prided in working in a company that was listed in NASDAQ.

Ah well, all cynicism were swept away as France, the model of ethnic unity 8 years before, now torn by ethnic strife and rise of anti-immigrant politics, looked to heroically regain glory with a visibly ageing team. A task that they almost magically grasped before footballs most famous header took it away from them. I had to hurry home from work to watch the matches on a small 14” TV in my one room guesthouse in Salt Lake. The good part was that I did not have to make any excuses to hurry home. Bengalis being Bengalis, it was an unspoken and tacit agreement throughout the city and indeed the whole state!!

In a sign of how rapidly things can change in four years, especially for those ‘starting off in their lives’, the next world cup was to see me in Shimla after having completed my MBA and having already started to feel a bit older after a heavily eventful four years. But the excitement has only grown, visibly. Forlan’s free kicks and Spain’s golden boys made the four year wait more than worthwhile. What made it even more enjoyable was the realization that I may not have been around to see it at all!!!

The gap between each World cup was filled to the brim with life that can only be appreciated by a rear view mirror. I have lost and gained so much – so many thoughts, so many convictions, so many dreams and so many people.

Each world cup seems a metaphor to me of life that goes on – enjoy while it lasts. You wonder where you would be as the next opening game kicks off and with whom. But I can promise one thing – I would still be loving every minute of it!!!