Storyline: As the Olympics near and athletic greatness looms let’s keep in mind the heroics oft shown by the man in goal.
Goal keeping, they say, is the most neglected, yet the most notorious come solitary nutrient–an enviable rooster in the 24 hours our sun completes one revolution. Hockey? Well, isn’t it a part of our every passing second? A nutrient of love and friendship, lasting beyond the canons of father time?
Professionals and aficionados of this sport, this Field Hockey, say, an error of microscopic proportions leads to anemia of confidence and rich health of pride and confidence in our opposition, courtesy, a lead over us. The above said, substitute an own goal despite all the humble efforts of our goalie, you will end up being in spells of disquietude. But our question here is: Can the sore-throated social animal ever feel their meal sumptuous and nutritious and delicious, should they find a dearth of a decent performance of a goalie? Hands on hearts, will we really dare to forget about the indulgence of any mistakes on the field, when a dish of sublime culinary art is put before us, whetting our appetite? No? Yes?
This globe, this beautiful earth, is of diversified sports and varied cultures. Sporting assonance and lexical consonance have always put me pondering and beefing on the one question that hardly invited any answer. ‘Why is a goalie lately recognized? Why on earth only few are blessed to take this onerous task as their profession?’ Does hissurreal life beneath our bruised and broken souls, writhing in pain, toying with the affirmatives of pleasure in an innate way, draw us a sheath of support?
Courtesy: quotesgram.com
David Seaman, one of England’s most celebrated Goalie once said: “Massive, massive mentality. The mental strength, you’ve just got to have that because you get a lot of stick, as a goalkeeper you’re the last line of defence. When a goal goes in everyone looks at you, you’ve got to be able to deal with that. If you make a mistake, it could be a bad mistake, how are you going to recover? Are you going to react positively or are you just going to cave in?”
Does our swirling theories of deism and laconic gushiness, when put in black and white (which I am trying to do now) push us towards reading and researching the lost pieces of exuberant dilettantism that which elucidate, explicate, and untangle the notable presence of a goal keeper and his worth on the pitch or field of play. With a view of that, and a hallucinated panorama of another, I believe in the rich deeds of our cage man. I also believe that the quiddity of my pen lies in the efficaciousness to read and research the needs of human soul, especially those of our goal keepers who play second fiddle day-in, day-out.
Isn’t it, after all, our duty to eviscerate any fallacy associated with the importance of this human being in the field of play? Isn’t it to edify the sore throated common man, our thoughts and droughts’ glorious uncertainties in the game of Field Hockey towards putting our pens on the everlasting importance of a goal keeper and social hierarchy in the areas where he / she is recognized by debunking any myths of societal hierarchy?
Chindu Sreedharan, in “The Wars of Thomas Hardy” once said: “I had a vague recollection of reading somewhere how Hardy thought of himself primarily as a poet who wrote prose out of sheer necessity, and how prose was an inferior form in his opinion. Verse, on the other hand, was magical, powerful, and in it was ‘concentrated the essence of all imaginative and emotional literature.’ ”
Will not, dear readers, to me, if Field Hockey is a column of high quality verse, then, a goal keeper is nothing but a poet of supreme verse. I also understand, scotched but not slain, life takes a moving. A Goal keeper to me is an antonym to Hockey’s inexplicable and uselessly cruel caprice of fate.
As a Panglossian at heart, I foresee India standing on an Olympic podium come Rio, 2016. And isn’t it in our propinquity? As time tickles on, we come across many a clishmaclaver moaning and whimpering when the game is on. But, but, if you happen to be a goal keeper like me, these are nothing but words of routine scathing.
Our outfit’s a shibboleth, which would push and gush life’s barren regrets and lassitude into oblivion. Lastly, I shall, dear readers, would like to be on your good side when the earth is crumbing down to its knees. I dearly hope, my hockey, my goal keeping will deserve a hortatory, a ballyhoo, and you all will panegyrize my deeds before my body is waning into crepuscular seconds of life if only for an epicedium for one final time.
Long may your richness last, Dear Hockey.
