Diary entry of a Football Fan-1

It's 1:00 a.m and me and the driver are the only person awake. We are speeding towards Ladakh and all my friends are fast asleep.Sometimes there is this awkward feeling of solitude even in company. It's hard to describe it but it is this moment when your mind wanders and for me some of my best memories flash back in such situations.

Reminds me of one evening in a train from Kolkata to Kharagpur. I was a kid and my shoulders were resting on the window and the head on the shoulders.It was a summer evening somewhat like today and cool breeze was more of relief than exhilaration.There were so many football fields on the route and with every passing field I would jump on my seat and show my younger brother the fields.I confess that football fields make me happy and even today, I feel the same attraction though I don't jump on the seat now.

There is a close link to what one dreams and what is happening in ones life. Sometimes thoughts also behave in the same way.I had a wonderful game of football today at Kargil.Traveling with a few football fans  allowed this to happen.We had read a lot on not  exerting as there is a dearth of oxygen at such altitudes.But this is what distinguishes love from liking. We just stopped and had a game with the locals amidst snow capped mountains and green trees.There are few moments in your life which you will never forget, for me it was one of those.

One Liner

The purpose of life is to move from objective happiness to subjective happiness.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

The curtain on the World War -2 is closing and Hana decides to stay with The English Patient in an Italian Villa.Later she is joined by Kips and Caravaggio. This is the story of Hana,Caravaggio,Kips and The English Patient, whose identity is not known.All four of these are in their profession because of the war. Hana a nurse, Caravaggio a thief , Kips a sapper. But it is The English Patient which brings them all together.There is an interesting description about Hana's profession," Some men had unwound their last knot of life in her arms.In Ortona she had held cigarettes to the mouth of the boy with no arms.Nothing had stopped her.She had continued her duties while she secretly pulled her personal self back."

Ondaadtje's writing is very poetical and the whole book has its unique subtelities, imagery and lyricism.A major portion of the story is in desert. This was my first book which had so much to do about the desert and after reading it I am truly enthralled.

Caravaggio has his own motive and so he desperately tries to find about this anonymous man. He probably has some idea and uses morphine to bring out the truth from the Patient. In this interrogation the unknown goes back to his life in Cairo.He talks about his love and it is this love which becomes his fate. Every love story I have read is different. This one was strangely different.There are in fact 2 love stories , one going on in the present and one in the past.

Do read this wonderful tale of love amidst war.A treat for the literature lovers.No doubt it was made into a major motion picture.  

My favorite lines from the book," What do you hate the most? The English Patient-Ownership."

Rating:4/5

Redefine

OVERCONFIDENCE : The confidence your parents have in you .

FANTASY: The feeling you had during the date.

OBLIVION: It happened to your GF during the Soccer World Cup.

FIGHT : You spill my beer and we fight.

What's your ?

Bought a new pair of Football studs and again found it hard to throw away the old one. The dilemma to throw it or not ended in the morning when I finally picked it from the dust bin .

So what do you find the most difficult to throw away , I think I found out mine.

Once a Runner by John L Parker

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With 60 seconds worth of distant run-
Your's is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a man , my son -Rudyard Kipling

This book is a runner's book and will make sense only to them. One of the best fictional works on running till date and since its publication in 1978 over 100,000 copies of the book have been sold. This book is mainly about long distance running. As most of the long distance runners will agree that such running has its own mysteries and the real motive of the book is to bring out the real runner in you.

The protagonist is Quenton Cassidy , an undergraduate miler at South Eastern university in Florida. But this guy is no ordinary miler , he can run a mile in just over 4 minutes. He trains with Bruce Denton an Olympic Gold medalist who lives nearby.Keeping all personal commitments aside he just practices and sticks to his schedule irrespective of cold and rain.The only motive in his life is to gather more and more mileage.

The book talks about the focused life of a miler. A life where thousands of miles of training prepares you for one last mile. The effort and commitment required for such runs is huge and sticking to the training schedule is the sole aim of such a runner's life.The running life is predominantly running more and more miles and s not limited to just breaking one's barrier but up to that last exhaustion point where one feels that life is coming to an end .Being a sports fiction book , this too has a final chapter with that last race but much of what happens in the final day is achieved much before the race. The runners life is mundane and  for getting that extra mileage he has to fight against all the Demons.[There is chapter dedicated on Demons and the reader understands the concept more explicitly over the course of the book.]

One of the most exciting books I have read and if you are a runner this will simply be a treat .To quote one among many exciting lines of the book,"Running to him was real, the way he did it the realest thing he knew.It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond;it made him weary beyond comprehension.But it also made him free."

Rating : 4.5/5

Header-January

Out of doubt,out of dark to the day's rising