Lionel Messi rules the airwaves today. If there was an easy way of stopping this Messi madness, I'd try. Now don't get me wrong. I am a footie aficionado, in stops and starts. When Liverpool plays, I'm there in my recliner singing 'You'll never walk alone,' tunelessly. My daughter is counting the hours for the Arsenal-Brighton game on Friday.
Messi is a great footballer, but how many times do I need to hear that. I liked Messi, particularly when Liverpool beat Barca in the Champions League match at Anfield, and Messi left the field in tears.However, right now, the media have gone crazy. I have to surf the T V to find a channel where I can find out how many new Covid infections there are today, where Boris Johnson might be hiding right now, how Modi manages to befuddle Indians with his version of militant Hinduism...
I have to confess: I am a news addict. My daughter has to remind me frequently that the news does not grow or change every half an hour. I am not entirely sure she is right -- the Taliban is changing it in Afghanistan, weather is creating chaos in many countries and Covid is still growing rampantly in some countries.
So my daughter placed a T V in my room and I can safely indulge without disturbing wall-to-wall sport in the living room.
Continuing on the subject of the deification of sportsmen, was it Bertrand Russell who said that sportsman have now taken over from the Gods of many religions? Clearly we all want something / somebody to worship. However, there are so many figureheads we can look up to. The authors, singers, artists, speakers, all of whom at their best can draw us in and allow us to experience a glimpse of something amazing, briefly.
I have been lucky, having been exposed, quite by accident to many cultures and their gifts. There was Carnatic music in my childhood in India, where there was a tradition of singers being invited into a house to sing to a small community of people who lived near by. My father did the inviting a few times. Then there was Binaca Geethmala and Yesudasan's incomparable Malayalam songs. Later I came across a collection of arias sung by Pavrotti et al and got hooked.
In Enugu the Sacred Heart nuns introduced me to Easter music, and in Egypt, killing time at an airport, I heard Arab music that kept me spellbound. The Beatles came as a shock to the system and in Sierra Leone, I learned the rhythms of West Africa.
There was also the Bharatha Natyam, wherein the ankle-bells on the dancers jangled and the feet went at the speed of sound. And authors like Hilary Mantel, Bertrand Russell, Jumpha Lahiri, Salman Rushdie and many others. I admit that a goal curving in at a sharp angle, with the grace of a bird in flight belongs to this category of special experiences.
So, yes, Messi. But enough now. I am looking forward to the Liverpool strikers showing some form on Saturday.
