Kawabunga...Its The Holy Grail Of Football...

I am sorry, I know i am vain... but i just wanted to shout it from the rooftops anyways.

Damn!

When AC Milan's Clarence Seedorf unveiled the Champions League trophy at the ASPIRE Academy, i just died.

And i lived...in a piece of photo, immortalised for ever.

Blimey!

Just Plain Crazy Old Greeker!

You know, its one of those times...

What do people collect for a hobby? Rocks, stamps, coins, centipedes? I collect mails in my yahoo inbox.

I just sat down today and went down memory lane, through 2045 e-mail messages, seven years worth. I replied to about forty, for the second time in five to seven years.

There were people who owed me cash, there were people whom I hated through the core of my being, there were people whom I owed my life to, there were people who I knew I could never talk to again.

The thought, somehow, makes me truly melancholy. Why had I waited to rewrite to them for so long? After all, they are people who I have known through that growing up phase called life...

It’s plain amazing, but of the forty that I mailed, just three bounced. And that leaves me with only thirty seven reasons to be anxious.

Tomorrow, for me, is NOT just another day. It is for me, the delicious wait for the unknown.

Would my mail ring a bell? Would the ringing prompt them into action? Would they be joyous at hearing from me? Would they spite me for the troubles I took? Would anyone remember? Would anyone care?

A few years a go, when I still lived in a world where lies didn’t exist, I would have felt an optimist. But now, in an age where emotions are considered a weakness, I truly don’t know anymore...

The Corniche Virgin!

I was, in one of its truest sense, a Corniche virgin.

I knew not the pleasures of walking the Corniche. I knew not about the gentle salt breeze that would play hide and seek with my hair strands. I knew not about the pleasant pain that the walk would leave in its wake, I knew not the joy of lying on the grass afterwards, staring into the black sky, willing a star to appear.

I witnessed the Asian Games on the shores of the gentle blue sea, which splashed gracefully at the stone walls that guarded man from water. During the triathlon event, I watched one toned body after the other emerge from the sea’s depths to run the Corniche. I watched, I wrote, and I got published. It was just my job.

Yesterday was different. I wanted me to believe that I could.

I did.

I started slow, promising myself to go slower as the distance increased. Surprisingly, my legs had other ideas, something it has never done before. The walk took on a life of its own. The simple walk gradually graduated to a ‘quick walk’ and later went on to metamorphose itself into the desperate urge to run.

An hour and a minute after it all started, I knew that this must have been how all those timeless love stories began.

The pleasure of walking the Corniche, was finally mine.

Life Is Beautiful!

Open it up, and watch it unfurl in vivid hues of blues, greens and violets!

Need I Explain?

Excuse the profanity. They aren’t mine.

What IS mine, is the condition,

That of a confused writer!

The Music That Maketh Me!

Some days, I hallucinate about the Roman Catholic churches, which sung the Gregorian chants for mass.

The church would almost always have ceilings that touch the skies and more often than not, the ceilings would be adorned in frescos…the fall Of Man, Judgment Day, The Rise of Son of God…

The tiny streams of light coming in through colored glass pictures - which took many glassmakers the major part of their lives to craft - would create the feeling of being in a garden made of glasses.

The men, and the women, would sit in stony quietness on the two neatly laid out rows of benches made of black teak wood. The silence of man talking to god would as always, be deafening.

And then, high above them, from invisible vantage points near the roof, the opening notes would play down. It would start as a tiny note of the grand piano. Then there would be the quivering voice of the tenor. The shiver in his voice would then be complemented by the deep strong voice of the bassists. The sopranos would take their cue and music would begin its life journey. The sounds of a thousand throats under the frescoed ceiling would then join the singing from above. Man and man, women and women, would come together to sing for the lord.

The power of music would never fail to drain out all worldly differences. There would no longer be white, black, brown, old, young, freckled or supple skin. There would not be the poor, the rich, the once poor and now rich or any other permutations of life’s situations.

There would only be music that transforms one’s senses. Transformation from mere mortals, to the one standing in front of god, gazing at his greatness, feeling small at the strength of it all….

Once in a while, when I am insane enough to travel into the night with just the silence of Whito by my side, my hands would search for the CD I marked ‘Gregorian chants’. With Whito his silent self, and the Latin chants washing all over me, I would make my connection with God. I would hold my private conversation with Him, with His favourite music setting the background.

Me, and the world, have no one to thank but a group of monks who lived centuries a go in penury, for the greatness of god. They believed that god’s name was beautiful and so had to be his music.

Unknown monks of the generations past, I thank thee for bringing me the most beautiful sounds in my life.

Ave!

It (D)Rained!

There was a time not too long a go when the first drops of rain on fresh baked earth sent me into moments of nirvana. The heat would suddenly dissipate and in its place would come the sweet smell of parched earth, which suddenly founds its lifeblood. And then, inevitably, the croaks of a hundred frogs would follow.

I had my most beautiful rain experiences in God’s own country, at my very own backyard. There always was a set pattern. The skies would darken; my pet dogs would get restless; the air would cool down; the first hint of wetness would creep into the wind; and then, god would cry down.

…Or as my some of my friends used to say, god would take his shower.

It was a long time back that I fell for rain and she, was my first lover. I could sense its mood swings, its silent rage. I could see the soft smile, I could feel the gentle grace. It was always my soothing calm and more than anything, she was mine.

During the Asian Games, it rained in Qatar like never before. It lasted weeks together, but there never was any warmth. There was no smell of parched earth, there was not a croak to be heard. All around me, the pale earth got paler, and slimier. The Arabs went wild with joy and burned tyres on the pavement in an act of joy.

Sometime then, somewhere deep inside, rain died for me. For it to come back alive, I need to be surrounded by the greens, the chirpings of the birds, the restlessness of my dogs, the yellow leaves that skelter down, the croaks of the frogs, the salty wind that course through the hair…

In short… Home!

 

The Winter Of ’06

The Games Of Your Life is over, leaving in its wake a big void, which many may find difficult to bridge.

The Games, was for me, an opportunity, which I think, I used wisely.
The Games, was for me, a threat, which looked like it would destroy me.
The Games, was for me, time spent (or not) with the family.

15 days since the start of the Games, I became a battle hardened veteran.

I saw bloodless war, healthy rivalry, passion, sadness, tears – of both sadness and joy, sports fanaticism, empty stadiums, extra-full roads, never before seen rains and cold, the church and many things else.

I saw and learned, from what they call and I follow, The Games Of your Life.

(That momentous night was captured by Shahjahan - a colleague, dear friend, and ace lensman. Thanks for letting me use the pic, Bro!)

I Christen You… “Don Whito Corleone!”

The apple of my eye, accumulated realization of a thousand dreams. What I would take my life forward in, what god gave me after putting me through the learning ropes, what I christened…

Don Whito Corleone!