(Wo)Man-United Man-ia
One’s likes are not instinctive, but
rather becomes one’s likes. The “likes” becoming or the nurturing is, but no
random assortment of one’s exclusive preference. It may conquer us randomly, as
a habit, non-selective, with the routine of slices of life. Watching the
contours of the play-ball to play ball, twisting shooting and the players’ defending,
positioning the armor on the goal post, all a matter of idle fandom pursuit, I
surmised since it was all fresh to me earlier. I would trigger the remote
control of the tele-sights only at the rarest of the rare moments, and if I am
to paddle the boat, the whirlpool would drown my vision, to nothing. Thus I may
partly tag on political discussion, quarterly
chase foot ball matches, though the fair amount of my presence is detected
in evidence. The experience bequeathed the entire adherent Man-ias in me, which
I cannot resist. I was much adamant to reciprocate to the external likes, which
try to crawl in to my being, since I deem privacy to be a supreme concern. For
the same reason, when I was exposed unnecessarily to the punt, run(-literal),
male ecstasy to me then, I would doze off within ten minutes and the rest 80
technically, the players can happily play relinquishing the presence of the
reluctant fundamentalist viewer. My nap- at-night was often interrupted by the
“hurray”, “what rubbish” kind of monologues of the remote holder, an aficionado,
who would end the game at the middle, since his unenthusiastic companion would
kill his enthusiasm every now and then.
After the grace period, after I learned the
politics to respect other people’s “likes”, when the rate of my yawns
diminished considerably, I recognized some of the faces, on which the prominent
was that of Alex Ferguson. Secondly Christiano Ronaldo came to my sight. But I
haven’t hoist the crest to the altitude of commenting succinctly on heroes and
hero worship. Each game depart to the oblivion , to me after the night, till my
punctual sleeping habit is disturbed with the next encounter, with Chelsea, Barcelona,
Sunderland, Manchester City, or with the names of fame or dismay. Even my language
fails to project the neurons of understanding, whereas I could see a history-an’s
visualization of the English, wondering my own existential impasse. Since the
player, Ronaldo( I remember another Ronaldo now, the Brazilian hero of our
rikshaw driver, who as per the fashion of the world cup just before the valediction
of the pre-millenium, shaved his head, told us, the passenger children of his Football
Man-ia, against French spikes) was sold to another team, my focus turned to the
holding share on Wayne Rooney with the dream “my team”, which has no constancy.
The real game beneath the skin of the
game made certain pin pricks on my hard burgeoned “like”. The reflection on the participants as the
glorious slaves, the star-commodity, that gains profit, with its seller
disturbed my enjoyment. Selling one’s stardom is no selling if one dribbles the
wine of it by sucking the west wind and remix with eastern airy ads, and sell
in the exotic bottles. I kept the ease of wisdom, and sought what more to know,
to have it mine too.
Whatever be the pros and cons, weigh
against the cricket chirps, I prefer the boundary respecting footsteps of the
ball’s boots. Rene Higuita might have kept the goal post in my “likes” for a
period when the Columbian goal keeper spread his wings to literature as a
protecting father through N.S. Madhavan. Thus the player assumes the crown of
the omnipotent protector worthy to have a Man-ia, fan-ia. Recently, I read an
interesting wall of a teacher( for keralites teacher is feminine) of literature, questioning my Real-ity as a
woman, if I am where I was: “Real Women watch foot ball. Great women follow
united”, I “liked “it, for making my unwomanly, as normal and womanly.
Presently cricket is about to swallow
football, with the imperialist ownership game, telling, without telling cricket
has greatness that football yet to capture. Kerala team is a part of the game
with the much celebrated cricket God as the owner. We are happy, for reason
unknown, but sure not because of the relief to have the best players, not on
the cultivated “ likes” on the game, but because of the transposed “likes” the
owner brought to the subjects. What more, when the time is of the incubation
for Man-united after Fergusan’s vacuum, of Man-ia for Kerala Football after Tendulkar’s
patronage.
Aswathi.M.P.
