The New Beckham kid !!!!

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.”

- Bill Shankley

When I saw the school weekly magazine advertising sports practice for all graders (after school hours), I was quite elated. Apart from gaining a few more hours of respite from nagging kids, I was also happy that my offspring cast in the same mould as her couch-potato mum would really benefit from a bit of intense action. Both Anna and I made up the crowd of spectators at any sport right from our own school days - him given his rather dense myopic eyes and I being the only child of overprotective parents. Frankly said, most days I believed my shadow was made up of three figures - I could not even compete in 50m races without their chants of "be careful baby", "don't trip", blah blah so much so that I considered physical education to be more mentally stressing than physically exhaustive :)

So right from the day Madhu started school, I was intent on getting her started in some kind of sports but never got around to doing it given my own absence from home and other zillion things to take care of. Like most of my plans with respect to health and fitness regime, this one too never got to see the daylights. So it was indeed a blessing to see that the school had organised sports sessions and that too free ones ( as part of the state's student health awareness programs) for their students.

I signed her up for football and netball and the day I take her to the football session, I see only two girls (including Madhu) at the turnout. With slight apprehension gnawing at me seeing several boys milling around, I hastily look around for their sports instructor for some reassurance. To the contrary, I see him chuckling at the girls and asking me "so your girl wants to play football?" I then confess quickly saying she wasn't too keen but that I would like her to have a try at the game. I then leave the playground to come and pick her up an hour and a half later.

Later, I sense a slight prickling of guilt when I see her dejected form at the gates and her rather sullen reply that she was finding it hard to kick the ball. As we enter the garage, I tell her that I will buy her a football and we will take it from there. She then rushes inside the house, rummages some boxes in her closet and I hear her crowing winningly "we already have it". I peek into the room to find her brandishing a rugby ball and look at her questioningly as I was expecting to see the familiar spherical shaped ball. She answers quite laconically "the football" and then realisation dawns on my rather embarassed face.

Having grown up in a country that always labelled soccer as football, I was having daydreams of my girl becoming the new Beckham kid in the block. Little did I realise my adopted country with all its terminology reversed, had me sending my very feminine looking and delicate Barbie girl to Australian football, fondly called "footy". Not that soccer would have been any better but footy was very much a contact sport and no wonder the instructor was having a chuckle behind my back when Madhu turned up at the session with an equally sports ignoramus for a mother :(

I look at her sheepishly and tell her I thought it was soccer that she was playing - she then explains the game to me and though I wonder why the name football for a game that uses all parts of the body to pass the ball around, I keep my musings to myself lest she gets annoyed at any interruptions from me. Later that weekend I narrate the incident to some of our Aussie friends and despite their attempts to explain the game to us and the difference between its close-cousins rugby and soccer, Anna and I, with eyes glazing over, ruefully shake her heads and give up on understanding Aussie sports.

Meanwhile my daughter still continues to plod in her footy sessions and despite being her mother in most games happily standing at the bleachers than actually playing, she sometimes comes home excitedly chattering about the kicks she had done or the wins she helped her team achieve. I look at this very sensitive and dainty girl who has started enjoying her footy sessions and could not but help feel proud when she recounts incidents where she had grudgingly won the admiration of her fellow players. I feel an overwhelming sense of achievement knowing that I have gotten her started into sports, something that I never managed to do for myself.

Sometimes as parents, we do tend to live our dreams through our kids. Though I know from my own experiences, the enormous pressure it places on the kids, in this instance I am willing to make a concession for myself knowing that I am making the right decision by getting her interested in sports. If nothing, atleast decades down the track, she won't be blaming us in her blogs, fair enough :)

Gym write-offs :))

"The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping up and down."

- Rita Rudner

- “So how much is it for the membership?”

I wait for a figure…..er, a numerical one in this case that would cause my innards to shrink notably.

-"33.50$ for a fortnight”

- “Really? Whereas it is 12.50$ for one visit??”

- “Yes”

I should have wondered what the catch was but then I rushed in as the proverbial quote “Fools rush in…”. Even for someone with very little mental agility when it comes to calculations, I do the math and figure out the membership would work out better if I were to make two visits a week to the sacred site.

- “So do you have any cancellation fees?”

- “Nope, just 14 days notice.”

Boredom is starting to set in the tones of the junior serving me…..perhaps at least here, I should have stopped and asked myself twice……but no, I was too taken in by Dame Providence and also anxious that the 17 year old might hike up the prices if I keep pushing her buttons of ennui.

- “Allright, I will take the membership, you are sure about the fees right?”

The teen just catches herself in time from doing an eye-roll and gives me a grimace which I interpret as a polite smile and am sure if DaVinci had been around, he would have made billions titling it the “Mona Lisa – II” or perhaps better “The Return of the Jaconda”.

I hurriedly fill the application form and sign my long scrawl with a flourish. The girl fills in the amount and then slowly enunciates the figure for my benefit.

- “75$ for a one-off admin deposit along with the fortnightly deduction – total amount comes around to 120$”

As I am still digesting the news of the 75$ sprung upon me, I dont fully understand the extra 11.50$ she has tacked on – perhaps fleecing me for the indubitable service she had provided.

I try to summon the right dosage of anger, but incredulity is still reigning high in my voice :

- “Should you not be telling me about these fees before I signed the registration form?”

- “Yeah I should have, I am sorry – are you still interested in the membership?”

I am starting to palpitate, even without stepping into my bodypump classes that are due to start any minute. I eye at the clock and the girl at the reception – I know I am going to regret the new few minutes of my life where I go against my common sense and my financial radar and with an imperceptible nod of my head, wilfully become the sacrificial goat at the reception of the town’s (perhaps sole) fitness club. I enter into the classes, the enthusiasm that I had a few minutes earlier all dissipated and in its place a sour aftertaste left by the monetary transaction.

An hour passes by quickly and though less enthralled by the audio tracks for the bodypump routine, I am not disappointed by the class and am hoping to frequent these sessions more in the future. With a pounding heart and quaking legs, not all as a consequence of the rigorous drill that I had subjected myself to, I drive home. No sooner had I entered the house, did I bemoan my gullible nature and render my narration with the right amount of indignant anger and histrionics to Anna, my better half (literally in all matters, especially fiscal) and the financial comptroller of the family. Contrary to my hopes, I fail to evoke any sympathy in my audience……..the end result, temperature within the house falls further by a few more degrees despite the double heating provided by the reverse cycle air conditioner and the fan-heater propped next to me.

Blessed with a metabolism that even His Maker would envy and a bevy of friends willing to play badminton almost every day of the week, Anna does not understand my need to bequeath a substantial amount of money every once in a while on gym memberships. By far, Anna is the most unconventional and broad-minded Indian husband I have seen amongst my circle of friends, with a healthy respect for his equal, despite my exasperating and futile attempts at maturity. However, given my past history with fitness programs and sporadic visits to gyms, Anna is of the opinion that the only toning that these expenses have sustained are that of our bank balance L He firmly believes that any weight loss that I might have gained is more out of guilt with all the money I throw away on these sessions rather than attending them.

A few years ago, I would have bristled at the slightest excuse despite the validity of his accusations but lately I have been seeing the error of my ways and so I rather dejectedly but solemnly give him my word that I really would see this membership through. I have always been a couch potato, never one for stringent exercises or fitness regimes, but lately I realise I am not getting any younger and hence the serious and much-needed closer look at my health. Given that my food intake has reduced quite drastically lately and I am reaching emaciated standards (according to my family), I am resorting to rather painful attempts to incite my hunger pangs. Hopefully my exertions might pay off but still that has not stopped my family from wagering against my gym visits J

Anyone else wanna place a bet on my fitness expeditions ?????

PS: It has been three days since my last gym visit as I am still crawling around like the house like an octogenarian painfully aware of every muscle in my bodyL

I, the living.......

"When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return--it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck and to let them become the occasion for a whole concert of grunting."

-Ayn Rand

I discovered Ayn Rand when I was 19 - does seem like centuries ago now :) Perhaps too late to discover a good author, but still way too early to read her books I guess. There are people who swear by her books, her principles, especially her philosophy of "Objectivism" which rapidly gained a lot of momentum and publicity....er, perhaps the latter laced quite liberally with negative criticism and censure. Despite everything, her books are widely read and even claimed to be most influential, second only to the Bible. In layman terms, she stands for individual rights and freedom, any form of collectivism is hugely frowned upon by her.

A few days ago, I wrote one of her quotes as my Facebook status message and this brought a lot of comments from two of my buddies who had read her as well. Like most philosophical works, Rand is not an easy read and I sometimes wonder I perhaps keep revisiting her books more out of a lack of total understanding of her philosophy than for her appeal as a writer. In all my 35 years of life, I have come across only handful of people in my circle who have read her and have been in a position to debate about her. Lately I avoid being caught in such arguments, as I realise the blinkers that I always wore for her writings are slowly coming off and I am unable to concede fully with the absolutism of her philosophy. Perhaps, in moments of self-awareness, in those rare moments when I can afford to be candid to myself, I am aware of my own limitations and recognising my own failures in living up to her principles.

As a child and into my teens, I used to be one of those people who would merely comment at the injustice of a system but would hide in the shadows waiting for someone else to take the lead. Perhaps this is where Rand exorcised me out of my fears. I soon saw myself growing into this non-conformist person with the least regard for rules or dogma of the society - in fact I have always been known to be a rule-breaker, a rebel in trying to adhere to what I believed in. I make compromises mostly not out of reverence for the rules but perhaps for the one enforcing it, given my own admiration or belief in the individual or the collective group that enforces it.

One Randian principle I always lived by atleast till recently, was that I do not use people for my own selfish gains. I believed I earned what people chose to bestow me with. I have come across people who exploited others for their own selfish interests and I swore never to be one of those. Likewise when I gave I always measured it based on their worth, the generosity of my own gift was a tribute to the person. Despite the precautions, despite the integrity of my emotions, as with people who are equipped only with half-truths, lately I have been portrayed as a highly manipulative person by people who chose to hide their own indiscretions behind a cloak of morality. But perhaps there is never smoke without fire.

If I had been less critical of myself, I would have swept all these comments under the carpet and proceeded on writing a post on my daughter's newly acquired football skills. But here I am, unable to digest the defamation of the only principle I ever lived by..... so I ask myself have I slackened with respect to what I wanted from people around me? Have I laid "claim" to what I believed people owed me because of what I gave them or am I in reality, a second-hander, "who could not exist except as a leech on the souls of others"? The only conclusion I arrived was perhaps I gave too much given my poor judgement with respect to people. Alas, what are the use of principles if you basically lack good judgement :)

So there I am trying to find my way in the darkness and perhaps a way of extricating myself out of the mess I find myself in. Perhaps as a first step I can start by saying I will not accept any scraps if the altruism is forced. If I take pride in being a free-thinking person, then I better start behaving as one, respecting not just my freedom but others as well.

"I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom."
"You call that freedom?"
"To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing."

A special thanks to my Randian friends for renewing my interest in her philosophy - it cannot come at a better time in my life than now.