Sunday, June 22, 2014

Football Fever

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Football fever has gripped our household of two men (myself and Sonoo) and two ladies (Sailaja and Ishani).

Over the last week the ladies were sleeping by when Sonoo returned from his office at 11.30 in the night. After a quick meal we two men would relax in our seats, myself in the bean chair by the wall, and Sonoo on the floor right in front of the wall-mounted HD TV. And the matches would start by 12.30 and would go on till 2.30 after which there would be a post-match summing up between father and son before we went to bed. The intermissions would be occasions for an ice cream for Sonoo and a cool drink for me.

Last night was different. It was a weekend Saturday and the males were planning to watch an early match between Argentina and Iran that was scheduled to go on the air by 9.30 in the night. All of us had a shopping session and returned by 9.30 and Sonoo quietly switched on the TV in the hall and tuned to the World Cup channel. 

And then there was an uproar. 

The ladies put their feet down and asked him to tune into the Comedy Show that had been a Saturday night favorite with all of us. And Sonoo tried to put up a feeble resistance talking about Messi's greatness and stuff which made little impact on the ladies. 

They said football is a great bore, and folks start running like mad till they were tired, and then they start hitting one another, and the umpire shows some colored cards, and then there was an uproar from the stands, and they thought there was a goal at last, but the yellow flag with stripes goes down, and everyone sighs, and Sonoo declares it was an offside, and the ladies ask what an offside is, and Sonoo starts to explain, and fails to answer the many queries like what is a free kick and what that other kick was that was not as free as they would have liked it to be, and Sonoo gives up dejectedly.

The ladies finally declared that it was all madness and insisted that the men could as well watch the highlights the next day when there would actually be an onside goal, to their hearts' content.

The ladies won handsomely, and Kapil was on with his stale standup jokes and the Sardar with his staler sitdown couplets and various ladies with oohs and aahs and fisticuffs try to tickle the funny bone, and fail.

And Sonoo sneaked into their bedroom and switched on the table-mounted LD TV and tuned it to Argentina vs Iran and returned to join the rest of the crowd in the hall...and was absorbed.

After a couple of hours he went in and came back shouting that Messi did it after all in the last few seconds, 1-0.

And then the ladies went to sleep. 

And it was 12.30 again and the men were back to their wall-mounted HD TV and civilization.

We felt happy at last to be left alone to watch what was supposed to be a washout match between Giants Germany and the Minnows Ghana.

No way, sir!

It turned out to be the best match I ever watched...not too many fouls, equal sharing of the ball, attacks and counterattacks in waves after waves in quick succession, and goals after goals by both sides, ending in a triumphal draw 2-2.

Great fun indeed, least expected, and so most enjoyable!


...Posted by Ishani    

 
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