How a footie star got nipped in the bud...

Football. A game that many boys (and more recently girls too) love and adore. I have never ever had a trifle of interest in football matches. Not because our country never plays, but I have a few painful memories associated with it.

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I strolled down towards this big ground somewhere in Nainital giving a sideways glance to the girls playing kitchen set with their accessories. Somehow they never attracted me... these girl games. The big ground was our terminus for every game possible. Around twenty kids flooded it in the evening playing all sorts of games. Hemu da along with some of his friends was busy making teams for a football match. I ran towards them with eyes that were alight with hope. "I wanna play too" I pleaded. "No" said Hemu da "You can't. You are too young. Why don't you go and play with those kids." He pointed towards a bunch of 6-7 year olds who were struggling with placing stones for their big game of seven stones. Apparently Hemu da enjoyed this leadership position which he had because of him being elder to us. All of us were huge fans of his and obeyed to what he said. "Please let me play too please." I was all ready to stamp my feet. "Alright be the goalkeeper." he said calmly. Now this was the easiest way to fend off interrupting kids. In cricket and football if small kids come and pester you throwing tantrums about how they wish to play, you immediately place them as fields-men and goalies who have nothing but standing and watching as their task, hoping the ball would come to them soon.
Two big stones were placed on my either side indicating the boundary of the goal. I stood there all set to receive the black and white honeycombed sphere and kick it back with full strength. Seconds and minutes passed but there was no remote sign of the ball rolling towards me. "Gee! Nice players in my team." I thought. Restlessness and irritation of just standing there and watching crept in. "Bah! Id have better played seven stones." I thought as I saw a few stones and pebbles lying around. "The ball is not going to come here anyhow. I am going to make the most difficult seven stone line up with the most irregular stones." The idea of killing time generated finally and I moved within the periphery of the goal to collect seven irregular stones. As I sat down cautiously balancing stones one above another, I gladdened at my artistry of placing them so perfectly. The moment I happily placed the seventh stone at the top and was going to stand up to kudos my edifice the much awaited black and white honeycombed sphere whooshed past me destroying my seven storied skyscraper. "What are you doing?" Shouted someone from my team, "You ought to be stopping the ball and you are busy playing with stones? It was such an easy arrest. Go get lost and play with other kids." said Hemu da.
"No, please let me play na. I will not do it again." said I so very half-heartedly that I was eventually kicked out and a new goalie was appointed. I left the ground and moved towards the small field where seven stones was on. I looked back to see the fair lad of the other team who had destroyed my football career. I wondered whether I should go and thank him but rejected the idea thinking about my ex-team's rage if I even appeared. This is how my football career ended and hence I have never known anything about football from then on.

Rattus Norvegicus In My Room!!

Living under the burden of being guilty of committing a crime is tough. When I was in my graduation, I maintained two charts. One read - "I felt guilty when.." and included pointers like 'when I threw away a sandwich' or 'when I unnecessarily scared Shalini about her petty ailment.' The other chart was named 'and the learning is....' and it contained mistakes that I had committed be they big or little. The aim was to be a better human being by taking into account the mistakes I had perpetrated and to learn from them so as to not repeat them again. A couple of weeks back I found myself missing those 'faded into oblivion' charts. The answer to the question 'why?' is a bit too long and requires the reader to be patient.

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A little devil all of a sudden starts creating ruckus in our lives feasting on our leftovers in the bin and yet to be consumed eatables. The enemy of the feline species somehow got an entry in our room and without much a difficulty created a havoc. It was around three o' clock of a silent night, and I suddenly got up feeling something had bit my ear as a little black figure speedily made a motion along the length of my bed. Too sleepy to think, I dwindled between the idea of it being a dream or reality. My roomie got up to see the criminal merrily moving atop the table. "See! Its there!" she cried.
I remembered the mortein rat-kill advertisement and the words "isey chuhe ek baar khaakar marein bahar jaakar" echoed in my ears. Hence getting one for my room the very next day became a predominant thought. Fate was it that we kept forgetting it and the rat but became a regular visitor to our room. I figured out that a little opening in the ventillator served as the passageway. Sadly it couldn't be latched as it had our internet cables running through. I somehow stuffed papers and cellotaped it badly leaving no room for the evil rat to enter. We slept peacefully for a couple of days and I silently basked under the glory of fending off the undesired being, completely forgetting how sharp a teeth they have. The barricades were soon busted and reenters the enemy. "Fine!" [when a girl says this word it actually means the opposite.. its bad] "Rat-kill is what it takes." I announced and one fine day I found a little plastic pack with a rat and a red cross over it in Multiplex which is not actually a multiplex but a hypermarket near our campus.
The rats of NIFT hostel are famous as because of their massive sizes they are nothing but giants. I tore open the packet at night reading instructions that sounded a little too brutal. It read-

Do not mix with anything to lure. Keep the cake at the place where the rat comes. The venous pressure increases and death happens due to bursting of the veins. In case of accidental swallowing....

I broke the bait into two and kept one at the table and one randomly at the floor. Since I had seen my mom using a different kind of rat-kill which was mixed with flour and butter and a little bite was lethal, my pupils dialated when I saw both the bits completely gone the next morning.
"The venous pressure increases and death happens due to bursting of the veins." echoed in my mind. It was too hard not to imagine a poor rat's veins bursting and the rat dying a death of pain and suffering. I held myself in contempt for killing a not so innocent being just because it had this innate habit of causing trouble at people's homes. Guilt overlaid me and I decided not to do something like this again. Peaceful sleeps along with guilt rereturned.

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This is when I missed my charts for if I had them I could have scribbled "I will never bring a rat-kill again. Sorry Bhagwanji."

Epilogue

"Crash!!!" I heard a bowl falling on the ground on yet another peaceful night. "Bleh! It didn't die?!" I thought. Relief and disbelief came together. But apparently I figured out that there are more than a couple of rats who have invaded our room. So now I am not sure whether amid this irritation of getting up at night due to their noisy disturbances I wish to bring a rat-kill or not but I do miss my Guilty and Learning charts.

London Calling

A few days back when I had viral fever, I sprained my back while coughing. I somehow believe that it has something to do with the entanglement of veins and nerves in that area. It was unbearable and torturous pain and I still have problems sitting properly. When I told my roomie that I was thinking that this flick needed to be operated in London, she laughed it over. I have mentioned it several times since then but you bet, she never changes her reaction and laughs in the same amused manner.

But I am serious.

It has so happened in the past that complicated surgeries of arm, back, hinge and ball and socket have been performed successfully in London. Talk of Sachin Tendulkar who with a serious back trouble landed up nowhere but in London to get himself operated to fitness. Though it is another fact that the plunge in his lowly performance continued after the knotty operation was executed. But dark is not always the future. In his latest book The 3 mistakes of my life, Chetan Bhagat talks about Ali's complicated operation which too happens in London. Apparently, the operation becomes successful and Ali hits straight sixes as he steps on the ground. One of the reasons that I flinched watching Kal Ho Na Ho was that evidently the operation that Shahrukh had to undergo was not done in London but New York. Had it been London, the story would have been a different one. Shahrukh's operation would have emphatically succeeded and an after movie scene from the flick [if you got that golden ticket from 'Last action hero'] would have revealed a grey haired Shahrukh besides Preity who would be rambling the same sentences about Shahrukh as she did for Saif.

Hence, I believe that London is quite an impressive place, apt for having a surgical practice performed on you. Since it has the power to change lives, to bend stories and to modify the future. Therefore with all my sincerity I earnestly state that my complicated back trouble needs to be operated in London.

Lets be organised

I don't really remember how and when I developed this penchant for being organized, but it really does kill me if things around me are messed up. "Not very organized" Teresa had declared about me as I scribbled the word organization on a piece of paper. I wondered what being organized meant at that time. Now that I know what it is, I also realize that I am a partial victim to it, this being organized thing. People might say that it is good to be organized, but I don't think it does me a lot good when I see highly unorganized laptops with stuff lying at place from which it is unrecoverable. Or it gives a rise to my arterial pressure when I see tables so full that you cant place a thing there. Messed up rooms, dirty tables, rumpled bedsheets and disheveled almirah become too much a sight for me. If I see a skewed picture on the wall, yes I would go and correct it before I start any work. It would not be wrong to compare me with those maniacs for cleanliness for I happen to behave like them often. I remember well about my last semester in which the first thing that I used to hold in my hand as I got up in the morning was a broom. I even kept the little store room clean. Apparently, keeping everything at the right place gives me a sense of gratification.