I, Me and Myself

Monday, October 09, 2006



1996, Sports day, My biggest moment in life, Relay finals, sub-junior level ( yup, i was always shorter than normal)

i was the last girl on the team. the one responsible for getting the baton past the finish line and win the race for Elemes House. It could not get bigger than this. as i warmed up before the 1000 odd people cheering and screaming, i mentally made a worse case scenario plan... something i do till date.
barton house had the fastest runners. the first, and the fourth runners were really fast. there was no way i could beat Sudipta. she s just too fast. but i could try.
maiden house came in next, hmmm, they could be a little trouble. but only the last runner was fast, prathima shetty...but i could beat her if i got a small lead at least, after all, my team had the best first runner. if she got her game right, then everything would go according to plan... and nothing could stop us from getting the gold.
the pistol went off and the race began... mythri, my house first lead was awesome. for the four feet she was, she just scampered right through... the cheering got louder than anything i had ever heard. i tried to keep my cool and screamed and jumped for the second girl to run a little faster... amdist the blur of all the colours and students jumping up and down, i could see she was failing... i cursed...( the nice way, yet unware of the potential stock of words available for such moments)...
she got to the third girl who stumbled and fumbled for the baton... "arrggghhhhh" this could not be happening, not after i worked so hard for this. shit, damn, crap
she caught up, and i could see her making a desperate rush towards me. i stood at the recievers end, as sudipta and prathima already started their last lap....
"come on sai" i prayed " a little faster"
as the baton came near me, wrapped in gold to signfy the Elemes house yellow... i heard my house scream out my name... loud and clear... "go.. run... " they screamed in unison....
as i held the baton, i knew that i had to win the race for my team. i had to win this, this was for the team , i took the responsibility and i could not give up till the last second.
run..run..run.... faster... was all i could hear
i reached the curve of the filed, my weak point, i always slipped or slowed down. i could not afford to this time. somehow i streaked past it, the others had reached in front, through all the din i realized that barton house had come first, sudipta had won again, prathima was just 5 meters away from the finish line. the race was over, but i could not give up, that was against my principles ( your never too young to have principles). only losers give up.... which meant i had to settle for third place.
ok, third place it is then....
just 20 meters away from the finish line, as my team stood in the side tracks and cheered me on, a rush of blue passed by.
"shit!" deepika babu from foley house. how could i forget her. she was by far the fastest runner in the enitire sub junior divison. where the @#$% did she appear from ?
as we went head on head to cross the white line, i ran.
i concentrated, i focused, i put my entire soul and engery into that one moment of crosssing the line and then i shut my eyes and prayed.
when i opened them...i had lost. she overtook me in an uncannily familiar filmi way... "fraction of a second " the teacher said.
how conveninent!

i walked away disappointed. apologised to my team. my sister came running. "you won, you won"
...... " no chech, i did not. i missed the mark by less than a second"
" ..but from there it looked like you had crossed the line before her and won"
" nope, i didn't"
...

its ten years since the day i lost my first race. long time to get over something as trivial as sports day... but today, as i sit alone at my comp, past midnight. i feel exactly like the 11 year old girl - fighting a lossing battle with the belief that she will win in the end....

sigh...

i talk a whole load of crap!

Posted by vidi :: 11:05 AM :: 8 wisecracks:

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