Baichung or Beckham...

This post is based on the first article that I had written for our office newsletter. In fact, this was supposed to be named 'The London Times vol. 1". However, it was my colleague and friend, Bhaitu-Da, who came up with the title that stuck.

While writing for one's office newsletter (one that is published on the national network), one has to be very careful with the words and phrases that are used. Apart from being 'politically correct', one must also make sure that no-one is left out and is mentioned at least once.

I find these conditions to be a bit claustrophobic as I'm sure most of you will. Hence, the following 'bhaant' has been generously tweaked and moulded to free the original essay from the shackles of 'work-place censorship'!!!

Baichung or Beckham...

"How about this then?" said Jewel, striking a pose a Vogue model would have been envious of. "Not too bad....but...." commented AB. "Dudes!!!! They have footballs!!!!!" I yelled.

Before I let you sink further into the murky quicksand of confusion (damn, that's a catchy metaphor!!!), let me explain the situation that was described in the above three sentences.

AB, Jewel (sorry guys, not the kind of Jewel you think..this one has a moustache) and moi were standing in a very crowded Lillywhites in Piccadilly Circus. The reason for us sweating it out with over-zealous housewives and mothers (no offence meant of course) shopping for their husbands and sons / daughters, was that Jewel wanted new shoes.

And I thought women were terrible at shopping!!! (again...no disrespect meant). An hour and a half and fifty thousand pairs of shoes later, he still hadn't found the "one"!!!

Being totally bored with the whole affair, I had wandered off into the far corners of the store, discovering to my delight, an entire crate of footballs. (That's 'soccer balls' for you pseudo-Americans. Also, if you have not guessed already, this post IS going to be about football. Hence, if you are squeamish when it comes to the word 'ball' or its plural form, I suggest you stop and move on to the next blog...)

Not only were there balls everywhere, these balls were pretty cheap balls!!! (now I'm doing that on purpose...) Pretty soon, AB joined me and we started to put a number of balls that had passed our visual inspections to the test, much to the chagrin of the security guard. Deciding that it was best not to test the footballs and the patience of a seven-foot, three hundred pound man any further, we bought one and exited the store.

"Hey!!!!!" yelled someone from behind us. "Jewel!!!", both of us exclaimed. In our excitement, we had forgotten our friend, who was last seen trying on four different pairs of shoes at the same time (don't ask me how). Apologising profusely and gushing praises for Jewel's new pair of Lionsdales, we headed back home, enduring Jewel's 'Besh hoyechhe na"s ("They are pretty nice, aren't they") which seemed to be uttered at a frequency of ten per minute (that's one every six seconds).

A week had passed by and the only bit of sport we had had with the football was bouncing it off ARAP's head. Sensing ARAP's growing displeasure at our fondness for this new sporting activity, we decided to have a 'match' in Hyde Park the next Saturday. Unfortunately, Saturday wasn't good for most of us, including ARAP, who was flying off to Ireland. Despite the lack of numbers, I had put my foot down and we decided to stick to the plan, calling it a 'warm-up session' instead.

Come Saturday, the three of us, AB, Jewel and I headed down to the lush and vast green fields of Hyde Park. After all, it was fitting in a way that the ones who had 'discovered' "Animado e belo" should be the ones to first 'test' "her". (That phrase was my 'secret' nickname for the ball...all I can say is that it's in Portuguese)

So there we were; three, out-of-shape men from the land of Mohun Bagan and East Bengal in the land of Manchester United and Chelsea, huffing and puffing, chasing a ball that didn't quite seem to live up to its 'animado' tag. "Aah..a few solid kicks should fix that", we had agreed in unison the night before when the last bounce off ARAP's head didn't quite, well, 'bounce'.

Sure enough, an hour or so later, after a furious assault of kicks and curses, it did. Satisfied with our handiwork, we progressed to the next stage....dribbling. A few embarrassing minutes of stumbling and tripping over each other and the ball, we realised our skills definitely lay somewhere else....passing, maybe?

Gaining some confidence from moving the ball around within a little triangle, we decided to end the warm-up session with some 'goal-kicks'. The sun had climbed up a bit in the sky, and we were 'warmed up' enough. The words 'hot', 'hungry' and 'haggard' seem to best describe the state we were in and not necessarily in that order.

As it would turn out, Jewel proved to be an incredible goalie. Despite our best efforts, neither AB nor I could put one past him. In fact, the only way I had managed to score a goal with Jewel at the post was to put on my 'mean face', which, for some inexplicable reason had him in splits...

AB wasn't bad either, although it was clear his forte lay in playing the mid-field. As for me, I had always been the guy who would blindly charge towards the goalpost given the ball and pointed in the right direction. In my schooldays, my then not-so-considerable mass and short stature gave me the opportunity to duck, dodge and slide towards the opponent's goal. However, many years and layers of adipose tissue later, those 'skills' can now safely be labelled 'extinct'!

Exhausted physically but high in spirits (mainly on account of the fact that no-one had laughed at us), we trudged back to our apartments, our minds focused on one thought and one thought only....a footsie match!!! That and ice packs....lots of them!!!

To be continued....Soon!!!