World Cup

Submitting oneself to the flickers of bright pixels on a TV screen relaying the distant undertakings at the World Cup has served as much-needed palliative therapy for these dismal times. Inarguably among the most robust physical specimens amidst the human species, men dart the football field. Sorted by nations, these men carry the weight of national identities. One nation competing against another. In a rather silly endeavor of trying to get a spherical structure- made from inflated bladder held by synthetic leather- into a narrow space guarded by an opponent. There are myriad sacrosanct rules to follow and dedicated persons tasked with enforcing them. Chief among them running alongside the men in the field, tooting a whistle, reprimanding the transgressors real-time for rule breaches, in body language and glares making it known to these youthful men, who is in charge, who holds the cards. The players give it all. Drenched in sweat, they are running wild and fast, negotiating the space, generating a momentum, landing the force, dodging the force. Mindful of seconds, aware of millimeters of distance. They joust with the opponents, collaborate with the mates. All in an effort to get that darn round thing into a space. Thousands and thousand surround in layers encircling these clashing men. These spectators cheer and shout. Players’ movements metamorphose into spectators’ emotions. A churning sea of excitement, joy, sorrow, anxiety, relief, anger and pity pervades the arena. What is there not to be awed by such an event? A silly and harmless war to lay bare all your emotions, darn, vomit out all your repressions.

Sublime, this indulgence may be, yet my sojourn was not a given. In childhood and earlier youth in a South Asian country, I had frequently partaken the pleasures of the event. With no TV at home, it was special moment, being invited/allowed to another person’s house in the neighborhood to watch the show. You would be allowed to join a group of folks at odd hours to watch the thing. Father would be missing from the house at irregular hours. Friends would talk about the games and personalities, many with vivid details and electrified emotions. Whole social interactions were colored with the contest. The thing percolated the whole social existence. My attraction to the thing, I surmise, was to this extraneous effect, not really the details of the game or the personalities. While I would join the animated conversations about the matches and players, I question my loyalty to the material details of the sports.

This was corroborated through my drift away from the affair as I moved to this North American country. Despite easy access to the digital displays of the sparring, enthusiasm withered and faded. It’s place occupied by other things- soaring rhetoric and orations of Barack Obama, irreverent jokes of comedians John Stewart and Stephen Colbert among the standouts. Furthermore, there were new complications from adult insights about the mechanics of these events. How could I throw myself to the joys of the games cognizant of the information of brutal loss of lives of thousands of migrant workers, including several from my own native country, while erecting the glitzy Qatari stadiums for the game? How could I in good conscience pay the propaganda machine of FOX to stream the sports?

Seeking refuge from the ugliness of collective lives in this country where folks are being murdered by government on the streets with impunity, the cruelty largely reciprocated by silence from the populace, I have snaked my way in to the solace of the game. These moments, amidst the patter of Spanish commentary in Telemundo, have offered an escape. In my random screams conjoined with the actions on the screen, my children pop in to check what the commotion is about, and return back to their perch baffled by odd behavior of their father. My children, you have no idea what a calming salve this whole thing has been!