Being a sports fan is one of the most frustrating things. Its an emotional roller coaster peppered with far too many lows that it would seem like it should be strictly for the mentally unstable. And yet for those of us who cannot imagine a life without sport, it's something that seems to make no difference. Because punctuating all the agony and heartbreak are those rare moments when the stars align to make your wildest dreams come true. And the euphoria that follows is matched by few things in life.
Being a true fan is always about taking sides. There is no meaning to a match if you are not rooting for someone to win. We tend to pick sides on instinct. On seeing something beautiful like watching Henin's poetic backhand or Mark Waugh's elegant cover drive or Jordan's hanging fadeaway or a smooth Bekele stride.
But nothing adheres us to someone like defeat. There is something strangely endearing about someone who faces adversity. You see your problems in that person or team. Their battle is your battle. Their tears are your tears. Their victory is your victory. Nothing bonds a fan to a sportsman like the agony of a defeat. Which is why when they do the impossible and win it all, its fiercely personal to us. I can count the number of times I've felt this on one hand in the two decades that I have followed sport. You will always remember where you were when it happened. It is always the same feeling that overcomes you when it happens - pure unconditional happiness!
I was sitting in front of my computer back home in Madras following IBM live updates of the 2001 Wimbledon final on people's Monday. And when Goran finally did the unthinkable, it was the perfect end to a decade filled with frustration and bitter disappointment. The next day I ended up treating every friend of mine at the college canteen. People thought I was loony. And though I started following the Boston Red Sox only in the late 90s, in their quest to break the curse of the Bambino, I could somehow feel their decades of hurt. So when it finally came together in the Fall of 2004, as I watched from the campus gym in Minneapolis, there was a need to let out that joy and share it with others. Given that I couldn't find any fellow baseball fans around, I instead wrote about it here.
But if you are an Indian, nothing has tormented you like the cricket World Cup. For those of us who started watching cricket with the advent of Tendulkar, we have grown up listening to stories thrust upon us by our fathers about the likes of Kapil Dev, Gavaskar and the legendary spin quartet and how they did us proud in '83. And yet we had never gone through a moment like that until today. When Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit that emphatic six over long-on to end it all, the wait for a generation of Indians was over. We had our own '83. No matter what happens from here on, we will always have April 2nd, 2011! Years from now I'll be passing on to the next generation the story of how I spontaneously stood up from my couch as the ball soared over long-on and let out an uncontrollable yell that brought to fruition twenty years of expectations and dreams!
And that is precisely what makes it all worth the while!!
