The year - circa 1995. Boris Becker's at the twilight of his career and Pete Sampras is at his peak and some kind of a morphed version of the two is in action at the cement courts at Lovedale, Ooty.
The Player had it all - the swaggering walk that characterised Becker, tongue hanging out and a small hunch at the shoulders confusing onlookers into thinking its Sampras and not Becker. Just like the (in)famous auto drivers in India who can confuse even best policeman by indicating left, signalling right and going straight, The Player was capable of throwing even the keenest observer off his real identity by serving like Becker and rushing in to volley immediately like Sampras. Only to pick up the ball that rarely crossed the net and rush back to the baseline to try serving again.
The technique was perfect while serving - the number of times the ball would be bounced in preparation for the serve, holding the ball to the racket and swinging it up and down a couple of times, tossing the ball in the air, arching the back and smacking the ball with an almighty smack - into the net. It boggled the mind. If Becker could serve up 20+ aces in a match and get in 80% of his first serves across with that technique, why not The Player? Much analysis was done and the problems identified included:
- Becker has a better racket
- Becker has a better tennis ball
- Becker has a better pair of sneakers
- Becker's t-shirt is better
- Becker plays on a better tennis court
The brain storming resulted in one solution - ditch Becker's style and take up Sampras's. After all Sampras was younger and in his prime. He served aces with the same frequency with which a waiter in Saravana Bhavan would serve coffee. The Player went back to the drawing boards and mastered Sampras's style. Same result.
Like a desperately sick man willing to try anything to get better, Goran Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi and even Steffi Graf and Monica Seles (including her characteristic grunt - just in case the sound waves somehow gave the ball additional momentum to cross the net) appeared on Lovedale's tennis courts to no avail.
In hindsight, The Player realises, that it was perhaps that he was too short at the time (4 ft. compared to an average 5'10" for the players above) or the absolute absence of power in those tiny arms that caused the ball to stay firmly on the wrong side of the net.
Or was it because Tennis was not exactly his cup of tea...the world will never know, because The Player has since retired from competitive sport (or anything remotely active) to an anonymous life as an auditor....
More often than not, when the maapilais (sons-in-law) of our house come visiting, I used to have quite a lot of fun at their expense looking at the royal treatment they would get from their in-laws, i.e., my folks. Mind you, my sisters did not approve of the said treatment, but they got it anyway.
The memory is as fresh as can be, when Sri, my second athimbere (I've never called him that), came home soon after his marriage to my sister, he was left totally pink faced with the treatment he received from my parents, something that had me in splits for hours on end. Little did I know that one day, I would be sailing in that same boat!
In order to put things in perspective, I must digress and tell you a bit about myself. I am a person who does not know what it is to be respected. I was trodden over by friends and juniors in school, am the youngest in my family and when my sisters gave birth to 1,2 and eventually 3 bundles of joy, who are also referred to as my nieces and nephew, they refused to give me any respect. Let me put it this way, the doormat in my house has seen better days than me. That's not to say I'm not loved, I know they adore me and I love them all to bits, but there's no respect.
So take a bloke who has never been treated with respect, add a pinch of the title "son-in-law" - where you get truck-loads of respect and you get the perfect formula for being pink faced.
Right from the time I went for the "ponnu pakkara padalam" to date, I have been treated like some kind of god by people from my wife's side. They wouldn't sit on a chair in front of me, they would refer to me with various titles from "Saar" to "Maapilai" with tonnes of "neenga", "vanga", "ponga" etc., thrown in for good measure.
The way South Indians eat food is well known, but nothing prepared me for what comes when you are served by your in-laws. If ever there was a time when no one listened to what I said, it was when I said enough to food. I'd have to do a fair bit of planning just stop eating food when I was overfull as opposed to splitting at the seams (eating the right amount was not an option). For example, if dosas were on the menu, I would have to time it perfectly and start grumbling about how full I am around the 4th dosa (any sooner and they see right through the plan, any later and its too late) and I can finally stop eating around the 9th.
After the wedding, whenever I went out, there would be a car waiting to whisk me away to wherever I wanted, maapilai shouldn't walk, you see!
Another memorable incident is at the temple in Chidambaram. Apparently, it was some special puja day when we visited and the temple was packed to around 10 times over its capacity. We squeezed in and I prepared myself for a long, sticky wait to get a glimpse of the deity. AS it turns out, the temple chief pujari is the father of my wife's friend and when he knew who I was, we were taken right through the crowd into the shrine, with a special archanai thrown in on the house (or temple)!
After much cajoling, I have managed to convince (although with limited success) close relatives of my wife to stop treating me like god and have given up trying to achieve any kind of normality with other relatives. I just have to let things be and get on with life, can't let this get to my head because, after all the royal treatment, when I get back to my house, my nieces are going to treat me like dirt...
I follow so many blogs that I only need to log onto Google Reader every 5 minutes to find a new post, yet, despite the fact that I used to enjoy writing, I didn't have a blog for myself.
Ask me why and I have a well rehearsed and oft used line, "I can't find that creative spark". The real reason is that I don't want to think, the mind has become rusty and unused (hence the title of the blog, there, I've justified the title, just like they do in Tamil movies!). The only writing I've been doing for the past few years has been writing reports, boring, straight faced reports - reports that are as boring as...well, me!
Marriage brought about a change in me. No, its got nothing to do with inspiration and being in love, I'm talking about the marriage itself. So many hilarious incidents happened that there is no way I'm going to give up so many chances to kick start that brain and let the creative juices flow!
There is a more profound reason why I've taken to blogging - famous people have blogs, simple! You see, my wedding was celebrated with a lot of pomp and gaiety so much so that the next time I went to Chidambaram, I was actually recognised by a total stranger who remembered me from the banners and came and spoke to me. That makes me famous. Period. Famous people have blogs. Yet another period.
This is the first post and therefore will be kept brief, stay tuned...
P. S.:- Feels like I just lifted a weight off me, having confessed to my laziness :)
