Staying awake in 2014

There are two things about the summer of 2002 that still haunt me, and they are kind of interlinked. I used to be a management student then and was an intern at a telecom major. The project that I did was mind-numbingly boring and involved examining the sales, market share and performance of the brand I was working with - through surveys in remote areas - vis-a-vis the competition. The internship clashed with the football World Cup that was being played in Japan and Korea. The kick-off timings were 2 pm, 5 pm and 7.30 pm (all Indian Standard Time, or IST), which meant that at least the first two games had to be given a miss. Now the summer internship is considered a big deal for any management student; it can prove crucial to your employment prospects. But then it's the football World Cup we are talking about here - an event that comes once every four years and promises to enthral football fans all over the world. Tough choice, isn't it? For me, it proved to be an easy one in the end. Within the first 15 days of my internship, I was sure I couldn't be a corporate slave all my life. I laboured to finish the project somehow, and decided that the World Cup was more important. The second thing that haunts me, of course, is the hideous haircut that Ronaldo sported in the final against Germany. Seriously, what was he thinking?

A couple of years ago, when it was announced that the 2014 World Cup would be held in Brazil, the first thing most football fans must have done was to check the time zone difference and then let out a despairing sigh on noticing that Brazil was 8.30 hours behind India. And even if any of us had managed to forget this fact, the Confederations Cup final in Rio de Janeiro in the middle of the night recently reminded us of the different time zones. It means that the kick-off times for World Cup matches will be 9.30 pm, 1.30 pm and 3.30 am. It's fine to stay up for a football match till 1.30 am, as most fans who watch European leagues and UEFA Champions League are nocturnal when it comes to football. But 3.30 in the morning? For a 1.30 am kick-off, you can set the alarm clock, catch a few winks and go back to sleep at the relatively decent hour of 3.30 am.

Imagine a World Cup semi-final between Brazil and Argentina at 3.30 in the morning. Brazil is leading 2-1 after two brilliant goals from Neymar; and, in the dying seconds of the match, Lionel Messi scores to tie 2-2 and take it into extra time. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? But think about this: extra time means another 30 minutes. If the game goes into a penalty shoot-out, then it means at least 15 minutes more. By the time the game ends, it's 6.30 in the morning. Time to start thinking about your next day - oh, wait, it's the same day - at work. When are we going to find the time to let the excitement of the World Cup sink in? Half the time your head would be rocking back and forth due to lack of sleep thanks to previous day's football, and you would spend the other half worrying about how you will manage to cope for the rest of the tournament.

This is one reason Indian fans have missed many editions of the Copa America - the South American variant of the European Championship. How do you get up at five in the morning, watch football and in a matter of hours be at your workstation? It's not like the Champions League, where you can give a game like Real Madrid vs Panathinaikos a miss. At the World Cup, every game is a big game - even if unfancied teams such as Japan and Australia are playing. Also, the Champions League happens only twice a week, so you can afford to go to work with puffy eyes, yawning through the day. The World Cup matches are held almost every day - and for the first half of the tournament, it's three matches back to back in a day, or at least two.

The option of taking a month off - which, by the way, I am told a lot of people in Kolkata do - isn't a practical one. What are you going to tell the boss - "give me a month off, I want to watch the World Cup"? It won't work with cricket, so you can forget about football. This is the reason I am much more relaxed when the World Cup is played in Europe. The matches are held at reasonable hours - 6.30, 8.30 and 12.30 - and you can get a decent amount of sleep. Come to think of it, there was one good thing that came out of the 2002 summer for me. At least I am not in a corporate job, where I would've had to report to work at nine in the morning! Nevertheless, the World Cup in Brazil should be a spectacular one.