Oh yes, this year's ending. I begin to thank whoever remembers to flick the calender each day, only to be interrupted by the thought of having to face another year soon. Suddenly, the person in-charge of the calender looks like a bulls eye my quiver can't resist.
Some people, make that most, never seem to appreciate the magnitude of restraint it takes to do something. Even the short and cynical guy can at times be hopeful that there is a face in the crowd that can see what a struggle it is. What is done is, more often than not, praised till the skies dry up. What isn't done, however, is barely recognised. What isn't done, when it so easily could have been done.
Sachin Tendulkar has retired from ODIs. Unfortunately, or fortunately, this feeling of the world-crumbling-around-me-for-I-do-not-recognise-it-without-one-of-the-surest-signs-that-has-been-around-since-I-bothered-to-look-over-my-shoulder isn't new. When Michael Schumaher retired, I wept. I sat smug in college for an entire day, blaming everything from a squeaky chalk to a lime juice with less-than-normal sugar for why the world looked darker than usual. And then again, six years later, a familiar feeling. Only this time, it was amplified a million times, thanks to the knowledge that I will not, for whatever reason, be subjected to that insurmountable joy once again. Fans of Shahid Afridi (*points and laughs at any such person*) might know this feeling.
The dashing guy that I am of hopes and dreams, yet another task was fully completed over the course of this week. Sadly, however, the results weren't premeditated.
An incredibly crude joke I made in Shanghai might have made the night at that table, but the knowledge that that particular punch line had landed on the ears of six people from four different countries is only exponentially multiplying the cringing.
While time tested patterns are running their course and refreshing themselves, I sit in my same old corner wondering what I did differently this time to avoid those patterns and how, despite what seemed like best of my efforts then, they still managed to repeat themselves.
