THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (PLUS A WOMAN OFF LATE)

the LEAGUE of extraordinary gentlemen..(plus a woman off late)-                                            14TH FEB 2011




this one is dedicated to my 'newly' found boy friends;to the futbol freaks, anmole vikram and kabir; guys whom iv never met yet have made a weird undefined friendship through this sport
and since i have known them, every weekend for them is spent in front of the television, they surely know how to have a fun boys night home replacing the age-old concept of a boys night out,






the reason i am writing this is the LEAGUE- the Fantasy league as it is famously called,which has made my life hell over the past few months;
now dont have dirty thoughts in your mind, this aint 'the' fantasy site u r thinkin of, but it surely has eaten up my brain and the torture MY FRIEND still continues.
it all started with my random fone chats with bittoo, i liked watchin sports always yet was mostly into football only during the world cups so clubs werent really my cuppa tea;
but still i used to listen to his endless talks on the premier leagues, the champions league, and so on, never quite understood what difference among club matches and country ones did i not see?






and then he would call me out of the blue on saturdays, no hi or hello ordering me to open this xyz site on the internet not even talking about anything else, getting impatient if i took time,i wondered what was in his F### head,
directing me to log in, open his team, keep x player on the bench y player inside,repeat it, confirm changes, log out and before i could ask wats happening, ok bi il talk to u later was how it used to end.
this went on for few months, the only teams i ws familiar was were the famous MANU chelsea liverpool and arsenal and over a period of time i developed a liking and loyalty towards the Blues, not that i knew their history anyway;
slowly and gradually i started taking an interest in it, not to forget to mention that a daughter switchin channels to watch a football match wasnt exactly a sight parents were happy to see any damn day






so one fine day last year, while all you boys were a part of this fantasy premier league(barring kabir but stil m includin u coz u knw i like u too much :)), bittoo made a team for me and informed me of wat al he had done,
at first i was like ok lesc what dis is all about, took me sometime to figure out the unheard names that featured there, man i had no clue what was to be done !
i was already late by one gameweek, the rest were already few points up, this was goin to be tough to compete in,all were masters of the game;
from the 'cunning operator and the undisputed KING vikram, to the elder sobre brother anmole, to a stranger kiran ravi (who i first thought was a female) and to my great handsome cribber hero bittoo, i knew this was goin to be insane....






after a few gameweeks, i started to handle the team on my own, the transfers every week, kept it a bit different from the rest, it surely increased my awareness and knwledge of all this manifold,
from chamakh, caroll to nani, walcott and so on, names which were alien till now started to become my very own boys from whom i expected to perform and bloody perform well, i kinda dont even like the way this may sound :)
gradually a strange curiosity developed in me every weekend, come saturday and i would be happy to stay home, the small time i had the remote in my hands it would lead me to watch espn or star sports,suddenly it became so important;
the urge to see ur team player scoring a goal had increased so much, my parents thought i had gone mad, had bad company, was a weird gal indulging in all dis, to top it all even asked me if i was into betting of any sort??!!






this was the time began my sports buddy friendship wid kabir bengali, though it does go back to our times of crying together whenever kkr lost during the last ipl season,ahh it was tragic and depressing;
but here another common thread binding us was the fact that both were chelsea loyalists, and thus began the endless messages, hi5's wen v won and lots of :(( each time blues performance started declining.
the irony was that even if i would be out wid my family or frens this league was somewhere stuck in my mind like glue,
it may sound lame and silly to many, after all, a random online game, why would it bother anyone, its unreal, yet seemed so true
there were times when my useless internet wont work, and i couldnot wait till the next day to come to office and check my score,i became so desperate;
from middle of the night to wee hours of the morning, it was my poor cellphone which i resorted to, and i would keep checking the points update.






let me share with you and incident which i just recalled while writing this, it was my birthday ind ecember, me and bittoo went to kingdom of dreams in gurgaon,(not such a good place u know!) and were roaming around appreciating how amazingly it had been designed and built,
just then anmole called up on his cell and told him van der vaart shall be playing that day's game, suddenly everythin else seemed trivial and there we were, looking for a table to sit, took out my cellphone to check if he was right,
at that moment, i felt weird for sometime, it was my birthday after all what the hell was i doing this for, this should not even be the last of my concerns,
but honestly a small part of me did get affected and as much as i tried to show les chuck it les eat n roam around, the league had infact become a part of my priorities..  :)



the first big exciting event was when one happy day i beat 'kiran ravi's score and moved up the ladder, "m sorry k k k k kiran was my team name,, man i was so ecstatic,
i couldnot believe topping in the class or an exam all these years could not give me this high of a feeling as this small victory did,heyy had i or had  i not become d new chic??!!
i got a call from anmole that nyte and it was d first long conversation i had with him, focus remained this and we simply kept laughing,
he promised me  they all will hail me as the queen if ever , if everr i managed to win this league, and compliments kept coming..



my discussions wid bittoo increased all the more, the wins, the losses, the amazing goals, the points table, the transfers, the huge confusion on when to use the Deadly WILD CARD, it all became a lot of fun,
ahh the icing on the cake came sometime back when after some awesome miracle, i climbed up a step more and came at No 3 spot, that my friends was one hell of a fast run..
but happy times dont last long and i knew mine wont too, the rajputana singh brothers were and are too good, that i have to sadly say,
and then they used their wild cards, i kept waiting for the right moment, man it kinda led to a lot of delay..



there are times when i get irritated, just F## the league, its a total time waste how does it really matter who wins or if i lose.. is wat i keep telling myself everyday;
but hidden inside is a damnn damn strong desire to BEAT, really screw vikram singh (in the league i mean), at the top of the table ryte now, how much i dream and dream to move past his score one day :)
i knw i m nt an avid football buff, m not even half as knowledgeable as u boys are, i dont even claim to knw d rules by heart anyways..
yet joining this league and competing with you guys has been an awesome experience, something which i would like to repeat always...


 i dont even know who wins or loses, i aint gonna give up till the end is what i know and always say;
finally, thankyou to bittoo, i knw i dont give u much credit but u know its all coz of U that i am writing all this wat i have just said today.... :)









cheers to the league...



love



SONYA SAHIJWANI


















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