Wednesday, 11 August 2010

4 Play-Second Season(August 2009) Report

(Continued from previous post)
The second season had posed some new challenges to 4 Play, which were, in one sense existential. A lot of players of the first edition had deserted the team; not because they got better offers from other teams, but because most of them were ashamed of playing. Ashamed of playing football!! Very often, we come across people, who carry with them the unnecessary burden of false pride and inflated ego, which emanates from a delusion of self-imposed greatness. According to the deserters, failure was humiliating. We are living in such a result-oriented world that we have forgotten to take pleasure from simple things in life. Not everyone believes in the philosophy of 'nishkama karma'.

Anyway, that didn't deter us from our attempts to form the team. We, the core members, tried all possible means to get the requisite numbers, but in vain. Finally, we got a way out. There was an LL.M students' team which was also facing the inadequacy of players. We suggested a merger. But there were other issues. We already had seven players and we just needed four more players. They too had seven players, and none of them were willing to be in the bench. Similar was the mindset of our players. So, deciding the final eleven was another headache. And we entered into negotiations and meditations. Finally, after a lot of string pulling and backroom dealings, the negotiation was effected. We must have been indulging in a miniature form of  the corporate mergers which we could be handling in future(if the corporate law firms oblige).But we had to make a compromise with the name. For some bizarre reason, the LLM fellows had named their team as 'Rejects'(probably to signify their alienation from mainstream college activities) and they wanted that to be reflected in the team name. We had to give in to that;and a new version of the team emerged,with an incongruous title :-'4 Play Rejects'

We were in a group of four teams. Or first match was against the formidable 'Nemesis'. We started the game with a defensive formation. One season of football had instilled some kind of game sense in the players. We held on for about fifteen minutes without conceding a goal. Then, the disaster occurred. One of our defenders, in a desperate attempt to clear the ball, handled an aerial shot, quite deliberately, which actually would have warranted a direct red card. But the player was not booked and they were given a direct free-kick outside the penalty box. They managed to capitalize on our amateurish set-piece defense, and scored a goal by breaching the wall. By half time, we were trailing 1-0.


Though, it was a much respectable scoreline, the team was demoralized. And that reflected in the game in the second half. The exhausted and dejected players of our team could not raise much challenge to the opponents. They scored goal after goal and the final score line stood as 6-0;the same result in our first match.

But in the next match we resurrected, like a phoenix from its ashes. The lynchpin of our team was Mr. Abraham Koshy aka Aby, who could not play in the first match due to prior commitments.Like an impenetrable fort, he stood in the central defense. A lot of goals were saved due to his heroics. Thus after the second match against 'OMG'(a first year team), we had a very respectable result of 2-0.

The last match of the group was scheduled against 'Sudama', who were know for their rough game. Moreover, they had managed to acquire a French Exchange student, who had claims of having played in the second division of French League. But all these couldn't discourage us. Aby was marking the French striker quite effectively. We even managed to create some chances for ourselves. But 'Sudama' managed to score two goals.

Though we lost out in the league rounds, we were ecstatic after our matches; more ecstatic than the winners. Winning or losing is a relative concept. When compared to our first edition, we had made considerable progress, and that fact itself made us proud. Another privilege which minnows has is that they are not burdened by the baggage of expectations. So any fleeting moment of excellence can become really cherishable. Thus 4Play continued playing, though a victorious climax continued to be elusive.
******************
(To be continued)

Sunday, 8 August 2010

4 Play-First Season(July'08) Report

(Continued from the previous post)

As stated in the previous post, Team 4 Play, taking inspiration from the Captain's words,set out for its first official match. The match was scheduled against 'F.C.Mofuz', a team comprising first year students. That fact it self augmented team's confidence.On the D-day, we reached the ground, well before time. But our opponents had not arrived. As per the rules, the teams have to report fifteen minutes before the start of the match, and in case of any default, the other team would be deemed to have won the match. This further encouraged us. There were no signs of the 'Mofuz' turning up. We started pressurizing the organizers for getting a technical victory. Given the kind of argumentative players we have(we have the sort of players who argue with the referee over the definition of 'foul'), such belligerent sessions were very much expected. But the organizers didn't budge as they were too keen to have the match conducted and they started contacting the 'mofuz' team.


Finally, they turned up;not the entire team, but some seven or eight of them. We again resumed the arguments on a different technical point. The rules specify a minimum number of players to be present on the ground and as they were not meeting the requisite numbers, they should not be allowed to play. But all our protests went unheeded. They were permitted to play. The match time was reduced to twenty minutes to compensate for the lost time.

Thus we started off against an undermanned team, in a very complacent manner. But as the ball started to roll, all the players, who were like belligerent lions while arguing with the organizers, got transformed into timid lambs, letting the depleted opponents to take control of the game. Within five minutes of the game, they managed to penetrate the practically non-existant defense line of 4 Play and scored a goal. That caused the further disorientation of the team. All players got oblivious of their respective positions and flocked around the ball,like houseflies sticking to jackfruit. Defense,midfield,forward-all got  merged into a single entity which constantly tried to stick to the ball. In one sense, that was a kind of 'total football', inasmuch as no one assumed any specific role, except that of clearing the ball anyhow. But even the 'total football' tactic didn't work, and our opponents made merry by disturbing our goal net. It may sound incredible;but its true that in that match that goal keeper ran more than the strikers as he had to constantly move up and down to fetch the ball. By half-time, we had conceded three goals;and the team was completely demoralized.After  the practise matches, which were mostly matches amongst ourselves, most of the players had assumed a delusion of being great players. It was the first time that they were facing a quality opposition. Leave that, they were even players in the team who were touching a football for the first time in life. Such was the state-of-affairs of 4Play.


In the second half, the opponents were ruthless. They bombarded the goal net with shots. After conceding the sixth goal, the captain, in sheer frustration, shook the goal net vigorously. That was a very historic scene. Like the image of Roberto Baggio crying in anguish after missing the penalty shot against Brasil in 1994 and the image of Vinod Kambli weeping after the 1996 World Cup match at Eden Gardens against Sri Lanka got abandoned, this image of captain rattling against the goal-net was very poetic. After that, our opponents were more considerate. They didn't score anymore goals. The final score line read 6-0.


But we were not disheartened. We proudly upheld the spirit of the game. As Pierre de Coubertin said 'the important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle...'. And that was the only thing which we did-struggle!.After the game, we ran around the ground and chanted the team anthem maniacally . At least, in the post match histrionics, we surpassed our opponents. The loss resulted in our elimination from the tournament. Thus 4 Play ejected out of the tournament, quite prematurely.
                                ************
(To be continued)



Disclaimer: This is not a matter-of-fact reporting of events; but a recreation of them from memory, with a bit of artistic exaggeration.

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

4 Play-The Genesis

In the beginning was the word;and the word was with the captain;and the word was the team. The word is  4 Play(no phonetic pun intended), which went on to become a team that imbibes the spirit of sportsmanship.
Two years back, on a rainy July night, Mr.Ashwin Panicker  expressed the desire to play football;along with despair because of the fact that there weren't any vacancies available in the existing college football clubs.
'Why don't you make a team yourself? Thats the only way you can play" retorted Mr. Jason Johny
But I was cynical and vehemently ridiculed the idea of football illiterates floating a team. But that encouraged Jason and Ashwin more.
"It wouldn't be a team for winning;but just for the sake of playing.A team for play. Ya, let that be the name. Team 4 Play." Mr.Panicker formally announced.
"Then you be the captain". I said sarcastically.
But no one got the sarcasm intended and the comment was taken seriously. Also the fact that, Ashwin had successfully created a pool of talent during his tenure as group captain in school, enhanced his claim to captaincy.Thus Ashwin Panicker was made the captain of Team 4 Play and he diligently started the hunt for prospective players. There were no preconditions. Anyone with two legs and a desire to play could play in the team. Yes, there were two conditions:the players had to wholeheartedly accept the captaincy of Ashwin; and had to accept the name 4 Play.Thus, with great difficulty, a hotch-potch squad of eleven members were made. The team formation was decided not on the basis of any inherent skills, but purely on the physical attributes of the players.The ones who could run fast became the forwards; the stocky immobile ones were made the defenders; the residues were the mid-fielders; and the one with the longest limbs became the goal keeper.
Squad: Ashwin Panicker(c),Anuj Kapoor, N.C.Raghav, Eeshan Chaturvedi, Sushant Pednekar,Ganesh Sangeeth, Ranjith Mathew, Rajesh Kumar,Himanshu Singal,Adarsh Kumar,Shariq Shakir.M, Ankit Singh, Udit Garg and myself. And I was made the vice-captain for some reason, maybe due to my proximity to the captain(And some idiots twisted it as the 'captain of vices','captain with vices' etc.)
Before the beginning of the tournament, the captain made the policy of the team clear, by quoting Pierre de Coubertin, the conceiver of Modrern Olympics:

 
"The important thing in life is not the triumph 
but the struggle;the essential thing is not to 
have conquered but to have fought well"

Taking inspiration from these words, Team 4 
Play set out for its first official match

     ******************************************
 (To be continued) 


P.S: Sincere gratitude is expressed to Jason 

Johny, who despite being a rival team 

member,rendered all kinds of encouragement 

and support necessary for the crystallization of

the team.
 

 
Disclaimer: This is not a matter-of-fact 
reporting of events; but a recreation of them 
from memory with a bit of artistic 
exaggeration.
I

Sunday, 1 August 2010

August has arrived


"I want to be an IAS officer." A friend of mine told me. Gauging the 'why' from the frown on my face he explained. "Its the shortcut to PMP-'Prestige, Money and Power. After that life is set. All bindass."

I just wondered, what would be this IAS aspirant's reaction to the novel 'English,August' written by Upamanyu Chatterjee IAS, where the highly glorified and revered Indian Administrative Service, is de-romanticized by depicting it as drab, redundant and also as an object of ridicule,dark humour and satire.Well, it could be said that since it was narrated from the perspective of a person who has no interest in the IAS job(or for that matter, no interest in anything in life whatsoever), such a pale and stale picturisation was bound to happen.

But what is 'English,August' all about?Is it a satirical take on the pomposity and lethargy of the Great Indian Bureaucracy? Or is it the description of  the soul-searching journey embarked upon by a young man, who has a mind riddled with dilemmas;thoughts marred with indifference and spirit afflicted with idleness? At one part of the novel, Augustya Sen(or August,his nick name) says that his ambition was to be 'a domesticated stray dog, because they lived the best life. They were assured of food, and because they were stray they didn't have to guard a house or beg or shake paws or fetch trifles or be clean or anything similarly meaningless to earn their food...A stray dog was free; he slept a lot, barked unexpectedly and only when he wanted to, and got a lot of free sex'(pg.35)  This succinctly describes his character:-lazy, careless, aimless,free-spirited, and always bothered about food and sex.  So when this english-speaking  urban boy, gets posted in the district of Madna('a dot in the hinterland'), it was quite natural that he would feel alienated and lost. But it was not solely because of the fact that he could not relate to the  mofussil milieu; he was also being tormented by his own problems.-'Not the soul-squashing problems of being poor;but the exhilarating abstract problems of one immersed wholly in his self'
(pg.69)

Our protagonist, like every other young man, is confused about life and his identity. He does not know what he wants from it or how to live it. Why should one live? What is the meaning of life? August has to wrestle with these existential conundrums. For a while, he revels in the confrontation with these puzzles, as he was under the delusion that these  problems were unique to him and he took that as a testimony to his intellectual prowess. But, again, like all men, he does not assail these puzzles .He escapes from them by diverting his mind to immediate and daily problems like, how to steal a dinner invitation from his superiors so that he can skip his horrible cook's terrible dinner,or which excuse should be given for bunking the drab revenue meeting, or how to get the frog out of his bathroom,or with whom to booze and so on. And when he is not pondering over the aforementioned existential issues, he would be lying on his bed to stare at lizards copulating on the ceiling, or smoking marijuana, or masturbating,or strolling along the railway lines,or doing work-outs at an odd time of 3 AM(which in fact is the only act giving him a sense of accomplishment).

So the novel is essentially a glimpse into the internal travails of Mr.Augustya Sen IAS. In its strictest sense, this rendition cannot be characterized as a satire. Because the character is not concerned about reforming the system or revolutionizing the society, for he is too self-obsessed with his own issues. The description of the system in which he is entangled, is purely dispassionate and objective. If it appears to be sarcastic and satirical, it  is purely incidental. A matter-of-fact description of the system is bound to be like that, as it is inherently comic and absurd.

Thus, we get to see the ever-scowling Mr.Srivastava IAS, the district collector revelling in his feeling of self-importance; lecherous Mr.Kumar IPS, the SP, always making colorful jokes and watching porn videos; Govind Sathe, the cartoonist-journalist, always in pursuit of  a spicy scoop;Mr.Bhatia, August's contemporarian who debunks August's delusion of uniqueness of his woes as he is also grappling with them; and Shankar, his neighbour and loyal booze partner.In one way it could be said that Shankar is the projection of August. He was able to see his own future image in Shankar. He is also aimless and disoriented and revels in his own indolence and has his ghazals and thumris providing him solace.Disillusioned with the impotence of reason in explaining the riddles and absurdities of life, he has taken resort to divine forces. "Everything around us is inexplicable, fundamentally inexplicable...My reason cannot cope with this world, so I pray to Jagadamba and say, here, please you arrange the world for me. Meanwhile I drink and sing"(pg.98)

Initially, our man is unable to digest this sense of fatalism evinced by Shanker, as he, like all young me, is an ardent worshipper of reason. "Problems-there were so many, and they are so totally vague. But analysis helped, and that was why it was good to be rational"(pg.70) But later own he also becomes skeptical about reason. He stops analyzing things and embraces the absurd without reluctance." Once he'd believed that it was good to be rational;but now it seemed that his reasons could never answer the overwhelming questions, or grasp the special providence in the fall of a sparrow. One way out was to turn like Shanker, to the extra-terrestrial, to Jagadamba, and like Vasant to believe in that special providence, even in the arrival of a frog; another was to slink  away from having to think."(pg.113).His willingness to accommodate the frog in his bathroom and to regard it as a good omen is not a banal event but symbolic of his change of perception. This change also occasions his attempts to quit his prestigious job and consider joining a nondescript publishing firm. 


As the novel proceeds, we could see the character's escapist mentality getting stronger. He becomes relatively more focussed and responsible, when he gets appointed as the Block Development Officer of Jompanna. But that was not caused by any new found sense of duty, but was imposed by the need to escape the monotony of inactivity.Another reason for liking the job is that it involves a lot of travelling. Why does he love travelling? "In a jeep, he would smile and argue with himself, you can do nothing about your future or thoughts, until the journey is over. In a moving jeep, he was not vexed with the onus of thoughts"(pg.196). Thus in an attempt to escape the 'onus of thoughts', he embarks upon new paths.

Although the novel is essentially addressing the existential puzzles that are troubling a young mind, its not like a repulsive philosophical treatise that you would find in the dust smeared corner of any library. The narrative is fast-paced, cheeky and brimming with a unique humour which is at times vivid and mischievous. A sense of youthful irreverence is very much evident throughout the work, which manages to demolish  the concepts and ideas  that are  deemed sacred in the popular culture, by subjecting them to an avalanche of witty sarcasm. Though some may frown upon it as blasphemous, it is just the manifestation of the characters' casual attitude and it fits in aptly with the ambience of the novel. This work will appeal to any person, who is intrigued by the enigma of life;and August can endear himself to anyone with his 'I am a confused young man' demeanor. This book does not provide any solutions to the conundrum of life; but one will attain a feeling of catharsis on reading this, from the familiarity one feels with the character. So grab a copy and take a plunge into August's mind. 



N.B:-All page references are taken from the edition of 'English,August' published by Faber&Faber in association with Penguin Books India in 2002.