Amidst the hullabaloo of the soccer mania that has swept us in the past one month, a recurring theme occupied my mind and at times went to the extent of intriguing whatever logical scaffoldings my brain could construct all these years. A very good friend of mine who time and again tickles my brain cells with his logical reasoning on a wide gamut of issues, on this particular occasion supplied the food for thought. He kept on asking me what keeps us so excited about the FIFA World Cup, when our own country was not participating.
I am a cricket enthusiast like any other ordinary Indian. Although I won’t say that I don’t understand football, but given a choice between cricket and football, I would go for cricket any day. So what makes India predominantly a cricket loving and cricketer worshiping nation loose sleep over the FIFA World cup? How does one explain the phenomenon of Indians being so much engrossed in a World Cup where India is not a participating nation?
I tried hard to fathom out the reasons behind such a craze. For once it appeared that the idea of nation and nationalism is passé now. Scratching my head, I thought that Benedict Anderson was right when he said that nations are nothing but ‘imagined communities’. So it does not matter whether you are an Indian working in USA, or a Pakistani studying in UK, you still have something to cheer for, as you became a Brazilian or for that matter an Argentine for this World Cup. It was as if globalization had erased the idea of nationalism from our memories. But that argument does not hold forte because the boundaries are still clearly chalked out on maps and border issues still happen to be one of the pertinent causes of inter-state conflicts and a strong sense of nationalism still pervade among the countries that are fighting it out in the football field there in South Africa. Glimpses of historical rivalries come to the fore when one thinks of a Germany Vs England match or for that matter an Indo-Pak hockey or cricket match.
Next argument that I tried to eke out was that Indians love to have an opinion on every issue under the sun. So be it football World Cup, or Wimbledon or for that matter F1 racing, we love to have ‘our team’ and fight it out with fellow Indians on the strength or weaknesess of our favourite team and try and snub the other out with stats as to how a particular player scored a goal from a particular angle on a particular match, or how Sharapova has a better back-hand or how Lewis Hamilton won pole position in the Spanish Grand Prix ! That argument made some sense but I was still not fully satisfied that it was ‘the reason’ beyond the hightened enthusiasm of the maddening Indian crowd towards the football fever.
It was only yesterday while watching the Germans loose the semi-final match against Spain, it struck me as to why were we so frenzied about the World Cup where there was no team representing India, my country. It is not about the spirit of nationalism, or enthusiasm about sports (Of course, for the numerous football enthusiasts this football World Cup is an event extraordinaire. And I am not speaking for them. My arguments are for the masses for whom football means only World Cup Football). It is about finding a way out of the monotonous life where your mornings begin with the dreadful thought of meeting a client, or meeting a deadline to submit a project report or for students to appear for the weekly tests. Such small little events makes us laugh, cry, fight and the feeling that sweeps us all through this phase is one of enjoyment. Forgetting the mundane mechanized moribund life for a moment we try to escape to a place where thrill and excitement awaits us. After all what is life without thrill! So in the past one month we got up in the morning thinking how the Brazilian side would thrash its opponents or how Germany would annihilate Argentina. And trust me these feelings made the days more exciting and the wait more fulfilling. Every time ‘your side’ won, the sleep at night after 2 am was so peaceful !
Interestingly I too allowed myself to get inundated with the football mania. My profile on Orkut and Facebook bore a German jersey all the while. The intense rivalry on the various social networking sites was only pointers to the fact that the excitement was palpable and it gave the Indians a chance to sneak a welcome break from their tight schedules. While hedging bets on the prospect of his/her team for a particular match, the first thing that came to people’s mind was that what should be an apt update for his/her Facebook account today? Or each time our team lost, the initial reaction was how people would make a fun on Facebook ! And all these, did precipitate some fervor of excitement in our routinized life. So, whether David Villa wins a Golden Boot or not on 12th July, we already had some golden moments all the while. Moments that made us revel in glory or regret in defeat and that too not for the Indian team but ‘our team’. That’s our own world where we live for ourselves all within us. I think now I have an answer. Its not escapism, it’s a route to enjoy and live life. All of us have one life, my advice is, rediscover that forgotten path time an again, that will make you smile and forget for a moment that life is nothing but a long arduous walk. Live life and not let life leave you…
All true as said but being a bong football is something engraved in our soul so whether its brazil or germany or argentina we love to watch and get soaked with the joy of the game. It is not true for all other sports and for all other Indians. In HYD the telegu young boys know nothing about football and FIFA world cup is far away from their thoughts. Good work gal, u always give us something new to taste from the same old bottle.
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