Sportspeak: Fair Game Or Foul?
When sweet old gentlemen drop their popcorn, turn purple, and scream "Kill the bastards", it's hard to disagree with George Orwell's claim that sport is "war without the shooting". One of the great ties that binds most men is the slovenly urge to drink beer and fight, a fact that has given us world events from marbles to soccer. Freud said some complicated things about evolution and urinating on fires which needn't concern us here; but the point is that thousands of years of civilisation has taught us to express millions of years of wanting to kick the teeth out of other people's heads through the question, "Which side are you cheering for?"
Today there can't be anyone literate left on the planet who hasn't heard of the World Cup. Well, almost. "I never watch sports," confesses one senior journalist, "but my ten-year-old son tells me there's some person called Ronaldo." What, in fact, is the big deal, not just about sports but in talking endlessly of it too? "Sports are about pride of domination. People can say, look, our guy is faster, better, stronger," says Siddhartha S, consultant to the Ford Foundation. "Why do you think ancient Greece used to declare a truce while the Olympics were on _ because the Games were considered war by proxy. There's a lot of aggression involved."
Most people love to watch a good brawl if not participate in one. That's why new-born babies in the capital's Chittaranjan Park are being named Rivaldo Basu and Roberto Chatterjee after a bunch of men in yellow T-shirts and long socks; why one million drunk Frenchmen turned up at the Champs-Elysees in the dead of night on the twelfth of July; and why governments vie for the hassle of hosting international games.
There's a general feeling that men who don't know, care or talk about sports are "sissies". One executive with zero interest in sports says he doesn't dare admit to this lest his team start seeing him as an "intel type" (def.: harmless retard), or as not quite a red-blooded man, if you catch the drift.
It seems to be all right to weep copiously on your team mate's shoulder, though, or ritually kiss the bald head of your goalkeeper before the match; these things are not sissy, they're what make the game. "People find a focus for their emotions in the emotions of the players," says Siddhartha. "They play out their own ambitions through the team."
The most popular guy at the bar, after the one buying the rounds, is the one who can talk about innings, goals, runs, and the players' personal lives. "I feel so left out in those conversations," complains Ritika, a law student. "I can't remember any of the players' names. If I could, I would make an effort to learn them _ at least I'd be able to participate."
Frankly, if she, and others of her minority ilk, find themselves becoming invisible and falling into their margarita with boredom in "those conversations", the obvious thing to do is stop lining the shelves with the sports pages. After all, sportspeak is a democratic institution: even Presidents and royalty attend popular sporting events purely to demonstrate oneness with the plebs. It's also an ice-breaker par excellence since team loyalties often expose your politics. There's nothing like shared school, college, or team fanaticism to grease the wheels of social interaction. Also, certain sports demand the social-anthropological attention of thinking people. Not knowing who won the World Cup is a bit like not knowing who won at Tienanmen Square. There's nothing fair about having to mug sports if you hate it, but then nothing's fair in love or war either. So show that you know your Kumble from your Kambli, and then you can (finally!) steer the conversation back to the mating habits of the scaly pangolin.