Another week of interactive sessions down, and I feel Week 5 coming at me faster than I did yesterday. This morning was fairly slow, which was nice: allowed me to get into my reading and follow the US elections just to see the kind of stuff happening there. In the afternoon I had my interactive session, where we focused on environmental regulations in the maritime environment (for which I have a workshop tomorrow morning).
That led to the highlight of my day. I spent my afternoon preparing paneer tikka masala for my hostel neighbour from GNLU, and then went out to meet another friend for coffee. We realized that owing to conflicting schedules, the International Law kids tend to rarely get the opportunity to speak to the Corporate Law part of our cohort, and we were meeting after nearly a month. A nice long walk around the city centre later, we parted ways and I went off to do my last erg session for the month (and the Term, in all likelihood).
This evening, I was with a different senior from the Boat Club, who really knuckled down technique on the erg, getting us to focus on separation and building out the back-stop and the catch, and each part of the stroke. I had a ton of fun, and genuinely felt my strokes in parts of my lower back I did not know I had. The other reason it was enjoyable was because this senior made me laugh a bit – he pointed out to my knees at one point and told me to complete the arms before moving my legs. Essentially by not separating, I was ending up in this weird position where my arms would invariably come into contact with my knees. On the stroke itself, my knees were getting slightly wobbly. Through that exchange, I was reminded of the countless times I was told about my knock-knees in school. Most races, the knock-knees would make my parents worry I’d trip over. I giggled.
The night was just a delight. In GNLU, every Wednesday was paneer & ice-cream night – and we were able to recreate that tonight, together, which brought a little bit of Koba into Cambridgeshire. The lockdown means it’s difficult for us to recreate this again before Term ends, but we’re going to try – and I’m hoping to try out some other things I learned during the lockdown in India. It’s always more fun cooking for a crowd.
You know how I keep referencing Week Five Blues and saying that I’m not going to let it get to me? This evening, after a rather tiring day, I spent some time on the phone with my parents theorizing why Week Five Blues exist? What brings them on? What sparks them? What makes it an affliction that unites the entirety of the University’s population? I haven’t experienced them yet, and I hope I don’t feel disappointed next week, but my working theory is as follows. It’s the realization that you’ve done so much already (and remember so little of it), but that you’ve got halfway left to go before the end of Term, which is a fair amount of work to come. Alternatively, it’s the realization that you’re behind on work, and that consequently, you have to make a choice about whether to catch-up to work from last week, or begin afresh from the subsequent week – letting go of past readings & starting anew. In either case, it means that time away from Full-Term is still going to be loaded with reading and reflection, and perhaps that causes some amount of being blue. I shall overcome. We, as a community, shall overcome.
Today, though, was quite something. Woke up by 7, did some reading – and had an interactive session for the International Human Rights Law course. Today we were discussing human rights bodies. My interaction with this subject has largely been through the lens of moot courts, or reading papers I found interesting, and although taught at University, I had never considered the subtleties within treaties, and linguistic differences in output that these bodies produce. It was a really nice way to feel awake, and at one point, I legitimately felt like the neurons in my brain were absorbing information and snapping into life.
After that, as I’ve recently been appointed as a General Editor for the Cambridge International Law Journal, I was given some training for my role. That was rather enjoyable. I’ve loved editing because it feels like you have the opportunity to play a small part in somebody’s writing process. It’s a position of tremendous responsibility, and where feedback is given, it’s an excellent exercise on how to write critique that is legitimately helpful to the author.
Then I had a workshop for International Human Rights Law, on forced labour conditions and the International Labour Organization. Before that I cooked & did some preparation for a fun evening dinner I have planned tomorrow. Coming back though – workshops, on the LLM, are essentially small-group teaching where the faculty:student ratio of 1:13 is respected and adhered to. It was interesting because there was nowhere to hide at all. I can only imagine how the undergraduates feel during supervisions.
All of this listening made me crave a power nap, so I gave my body what it asked for, spoke to the parents, took a quick walk – and then had a 7pm Jurisprudence interactive session. Why 7pm? Well, yesterday I had a conflicting Global Governance workshop, and the Professor was kind enough to accommodate the conflict by offering an online session tonight, which was fantastic. Just 5 of us going through legal abstractions – yes, Jurisprudence is still going over my head.
All of this, and it felt like it was time to give thanks for everything this place is allowing me to live out, and remember everything I have to give back to the community. That closed out what has felt like a forever Tuesday.
Today’s been an intriguing day. Having slept for 8 hours, I woke up, completed some reviews of submissions I was reading – and got to my reading lists once more. We’re at Week 4 now. Week Five Blues are close-by, it appears. As of yesterday, we’ve learned that we’re going to be on National Lockdown from Thursday. However, this seems to be a rather soft lockdown – with Universities and Retail that’s Essential continuing to be open. Restaurants are going to remain open for takeaways. The decentralized nature of decision-making at Cambridge means we’re awaiting instructions from College and the Faculty of Law on the implications of the lockdown on decisions that had been communicated to us earlier in the year – particularly on in-person teaching. For me, as an off-site student, something that I’m waiting to understand is if I will still be able to visit St Edmund’s – and to what extent I can interact with my College.
I knew this was likely before I signed up to study this year, so I felt adequately prepared for this, and I am still feeling that way. I will continue to study and make the most of what this place has to offer. If I feel like it gets to me though, I will reach out for any help I need.
I had class in the afternoon, followed by a Graduate Workshop. Where we have classes that have more than 13 students signed up to study a given subject on the LLM, we get workshops that accommodate only 13 people twice a semester. That’s really helpful, and is the small-group teaching that allows for broader discussions about subjects we’re clearly passionate about. Today’s agenda: common spaces, something I adore with every fibre of my being.
Having received a notification about a book that I had to return, in the evening I cycled to Sidgwick, returned the book to the Faculty, cycled to College, and came home. Now I’ve spent an hour watching YouTube videos – so I’m going to spend the rest of the evening preparing for my 9AM tomorrow.
This afternoon, I went out for lunch with an undergraduate Law student at the University, someone I’m working with as a part of Decolonize Law Cambridge to discuss work and other things. Over the course of our conversation, he brought my attention back to this blog and it was at that point that I realized that I didn’t write all week after Monday. For all the talk about recording every impression this place makes on my mind, I was upset with myself for not actually following through on it. Particularly because I heard about this Theatre teacher in Singapore who has been doing something very similar to what I do since Blogspot came about (which is a while ago on the blogosphere now). I got back home and told myself, that’s it, I’m going to spend the entire evening writing – and churn out six quality pieces about the week that’s gone by. One essay in though, it felt pointless. The day’s past, and I feel like I’d be dishonest to myself and to anybody reading the blog in saying I wrote this on that day. Although I journal and take notes everyday to help me fill in gaps where I’m unable to blog, the conversion of those thoughts into concrete sentences just never feels as raw as writing observations on the day of events feels.
Henceforth, therefore, I shall strive not to miss days – because I don’t want to. If I do however, I’m not going to strap-together or plaster-together a string of posts that act as observations from the week. I think I’ve been doing a lot of that because of my own obsession with completion and counting, but someone pointed that out to me as a character trait of mine last week and I was very amused with myself. I’m legitimately obsessed with numbers – because they never lie, yet in my case, I’ve been using them to further the notion that I am a daily blogger.
I’m a blogger, a writer. Daily-ness happens frequently.
The rest of the evening went in a secret project that may be revealed to the world some time in the future, some music, readings & work. We’ve just discovered we’re going to be on lockdown beginning Thursday all through to December the 2nd, which is just 4 weeks. I hope this helps contain the spread of the coronavirus – it would be very difficult to the NHS and for hospitals here to have several patients to tend to. I need to use this week to figure out a regime that replaces all the sport I’ve been doing in the past couple of weeks with some other forms of fitness. Maybe I’ll do hockey drills on the Common – we shall see.
I woke up in amazement of everything that had transpired last evening. I wrote about pinch me moments, and it feels like I want to hold on to every single moment of every single day and let it linger in my memory palace.
A morning lecture and then I was done for the day, free to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening on readings for tomorrow’s interactive session. A quick trip to the bank and I got back home and had the opportunity to eat pancakes at home with my housemates, a treat that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I should explain my living situation. I’m a paying guest in a house – so I live with a family. The house is always a lovely environment to stay in because it’s rarely empty. There’s atleast one person at home most times of the day. It’s great to come home to that, and to pop down into the kitchen for conversations whenever I’m taking a break – for moments like this evening’s pancake adventure of course.
I’m not singing Chapel Choir this weekend, but we just received an e-mail from our Chapel Music Director with recordings from last week and I can identify moments within those recordings where I wasn’t confident of the sound that would come from my mouth so I’m quieter and suddenly I get louder when I don’t necessarily need to. This weekend I’ll be practicing music for the Symphony Chorus, and hopefully all the practice gives me the confidence to trust my vocal chords once more. I know I’ve written this before, but I’d like to be as free as I was when I was a child. It was just my parents that thought I sang well initially, and that gave me the liberty to explore singing to my heart’s content. I’d like to do that of my own accord once more.
I’m already tired of myself talking about how quickly time is going by. Henceforth, I hope you can assume that for me, time is flying rapidly. I won’t dwell on it any further, because truly, on days like today, I feel like I’m making the most of the 24 hours given to me each day: to grow, to rest, to think.
Academically, today marked two interactive sessions I had a lot of fun in. On Mondays, I have Global Governance & Jurisprudence, both of which are rather theoretical subjects that allow for a lot of self-reflection and leave me wondering how I got here in the first place. I only kid. Although Jurisprudence is currently going over my head slightly, I’m hoping that as time passes and I get more comfortable with my readings I’ll be able to formulate opinions, which I’d really like to do. Global Governance is just a lot of fun because the questions we deal with there all have relevance to current debates within International Law, a subject I am inherently fond of.
In the evening it was time for my matriculation soiree. Yes, fancy. Before I left Bengaluru, a very close friend gifted me a purple tie, and when I received it, I knew how I’d like to wear it. A Pantone Cool Gray 38 suit with a pink shirt and that tie – and that’s what I wore tonight to the event. I had the opportunity to sign the College Register, that Lemaitre also signed all those years ago with my Lamy pen – another gift from a friend who considered me worthy of the instrument. Our College master said something to allay any fears of the imposter syndrome – she said Cambridge doesn’t make mistakes, and that we all by virtue of signing up to that Register, had a home here. That was very comforting to hear.
At the soiree, I met such interesting people who are within my matriculating cohort. A doctor from Japan now studying for an MBA in anticipation of a career in Government work, a student from Egypt with work experience at the WHO studying Public Policy prior to returning to the field. What a delight to hold conversation with them. I learned something new over the course of the evening too – parallel algorithms, which definitely feel like something I want to read more about.
Got home, updated the Google Photos album for my family (I didn’t realize a week had passed since my last update), and went to bed content that I had done readings between Thursday and Sunday because I didn’t actually read anything today.
Another week draws to a close. I look back on it and think, shucks – time has flown by, and I anticipate that this is how the rest of full-term is going to feel as well. Each day I come home I tell myself I’ve had a couple of pinch-me moments, fleeting instances where all of this has felt a world away. A few months ago, none of it seemed possible, and I prepared myself to access as much of this education as I could from my home in Bangalore. Yet we’re here today, testament not only to the fact that Cambridge was desirous of us spending time in-residence during term, but more crucially to the idea that now, this is where we should be. I hope more people get to come here, and get to access the space that Cambridge is – for the ideas I’ve heard, the people I’ve met, the air I’m breathing, all of it seems wonderful.
This morning I sung at Chapel Choir. I dabbled in singing while I was younger, but aside from a few classes here and there, I’ve never trained my voice. I joined Chapel Choir and the Symphony Chorus to learn how to read music better, to better understand sound in my head – to see, and sing, rather than having to rely on an instrument to gauge music. To perfect the pitch in my head would be delightful, and I hope to use the wonderful opportunity to sing with a Choir to gain confidence, gain insight into what the lines represent, and understand how to be conducted. Of course, finding my voice along the way would be excellent too, although I have a feeling that may take more than a year.
There is a solemnity to everything we sang this morning. The selection of music, Terry’s Short Mass in C, was wonderful, and there are two phrases that have struck with me.The first is Kyrie E-Leison, which is Lord, have mercy, something I find quite remarkable – an expression of a wish, of hope, of desire. The second, is Miserere, another variant to Have mercy on me. I find the latter quite astounding, for the English word most commonly associated with the root might be Misery, yet rather here, is Mercy. I left service with insight, and the space with a desire to go back again, to sit in the quiet, as the Dean of St Edmund’s mentioned.
In the evening I played hockey. We lost both games, but I’m slowly gaining confidence, and I’m going to stop babbling on about being a left-hander playing right-handed. It’s rather silly I think, and it’s an excuse that worked in week 1 that I’m happy to shed off henceforth. The games were super enjoyable – the first one less so because we kept conceding, but the second one felt like we began to display a solid defensive shape and an understanding of where each player was likely to be, and how each of us responds to situations. Unfortunately at one point, my response to a ball being behind me was to watch it roll. I felt rather lazy at the minute, I must admit, but now, looking back, all I’m hoping for from next week’s games is that I jog around and stay light on my feet throughout, so I can build on my stamina. Having my left-hand on the top of the stick I think might also make tackling a lot easier, but we shall see what I carry forward to next week.
Later, I caught up with a friend over coffee, and having wondered at the delights of the Pret-A-Manger subscription I possess, and encouraging him to begin his own, I returned home, my legs longing for rest, and my mind looking forward to tomorrow – where the pace of life brings me to 2 interactive sessions and a lot of thinking.
Today was a day spent at home, tending to things and taking care of everything I had to before the next week starts. Although the evening presented me with some unexpected, eventful surprises, most of it went in trying to contextualize the reading I had done in the past week.
The rest? Well, I realized most of my room was laid out in a way that was more comfortable for a right-handed rather than a left-hander like me. Simple set-up issues. Owing to my consumption of media I’ve traditionally seen microphones that are set-up on the left side of the desk with the arm coming in from the left. However, for me, that takes up valuable real-estate where I’d much rather place a notebook or allow my elbow some more breathing room. Moved that over to the right side, moved a couple of shelves a bit further to the right as well, to allow my right hand the freedom to reach for books and things while my left hand has more working room. It’s wonderful how inspired the brain can choose to be while trying to pass some time before you’re expecting a call.
I’ve been telling people back home that I am very uncertain about where my time is going, but I have the good fortune of being able to look back at this blog and see exactly how the day has unfolded.
This morning I spent time on the rowing erg – getting in a quick workout before starting my day. Everyone calls them rowing machines, or ergs, but it was only yesterday that I learned that the erg was short for ergometer, and that an ergometer measures Work, allowing for the computation of an Erg score and a standard measure of performance without having people sit on a boat. Rather lovely if you ask me. While on the erg, I noticed that the first four minutes felt hellish, but once I settled into a rhythm, boosted on by the fact that I was surrounded by some others feeling the same way, it got a lot easier. I began concentrating on the rhythm itself, and while sliding back and forth, I was reminded of march-past. That too had a very nice rhythm to it in school: Left, Left, Left Right Left. Good fun.
A long day of reading, some cooking – and in the evening I caught up with some friends. First, to set up the Cambridge University International Law Society and create a plan of action for the rest of Term – to figure out what events we had in mind, and how we could actually go about gaining traction on social media and otherwise. Then, to finally eat my first meal in College and meet College dosts. Living off-site means that it’s slightly trickier to catch up with them in an impromptu way – there’s a smaller likelihood that we’ll bump into each other, and so this had to be planned too. It was very much worth it though, and I got a good game of pool out of it as well.
Getting home, I read some more, and slowly realized how much I had neglected non-Law reading in the past two weeks. I’m going to use the weekend to catch up to as much as I can, before the onslaught of the reading list must begin once more.
Thursday means no interactive sessions, but also marks the beginning of a long-weekend filled with sport, reading, socializing, and sleep.
Truth be told most of my morning passed by in writing a couple of things, after which I went and played tennis. I had a horrid game, losing the only set we played 0:6, and winning a handful of points from unforced errors my friend made. Slowly I’m hoping to gain back some confidence, particularly on my backhand, where I seem to have lost any semblance of technique. I’m a left-handed player with a two-handed backhand (occassionally one, for the flair). The technique for both, as it was taught to me, is quite different, particularly in terms of how far my left foot crosses over to generate power. Owing to a lack of practice, I don’t seem to be able to gauge the distance to the ball on my backhand side, and then I get confused between wanting to play two-handed or one-handed, as a result of which my left foot is completely out of position. Hopefully I can work on that next week. It was good fun though, particularly because we played just after it rained, and got to experience changeable weather conditions at its finest.
The evening brought with it a wonderfully enlightening conversation with a Geographer whose works I’ve admired for a long time. It feels very nice to have this access to information, and hopefully I can do something in the short and long-run that improves that access, making it available to more people. For a start though, I’ve discovered that writing good e-mails really work. In a single conversation, I learned about the bounds of a subject and how to toe time with rigour, and he really spent time answering my queries about his work, his approach to the subaltern and what inspired him to write what he wrote – and what he currently researches. He listened to my ideas patiently, asking questions of me grounded in his own work, and I left the conversation with more to think about, which is always comforting.
Last night I had a wonderful discovery – where I found out you can use a laptop as a second-screen, and Windows 10 has built-in a wonderful projection feature. Now we’ve got that going in the room, so the eyes are less strained, and I have no excuses not to be reading and taking notes simultaneously. The pleasure of learning new technology skills is truly a kick unlike many others. Genuinely, I felt like I was hackerman.
While I tell you about how I’ve scheduled-in time for sleep, it’s equally important that I acknowledge that sometimes all schedules go for a toss. That tends to happen when you realize that there’s something you haven’t penciled in that you have left to do, or that you want to do. Yesterday after my lecture, I realized I hadn’t met my hostel neighbour from college for a week or so. I haven’t met some of my other newfound friends here for a similar period, but we’re catching up on the weekend – which I’m happy about. With this guy though, it’s slightly different. We’ve known each other for five years, but not just known. We were in the same class and spent final year sitting next to each other there, and as a result of being hostel neighbours, we bumped into each other in the washroom atleast once every day, in addition to meeting once daily usually late in the evening just as he was about to go to sleep – when my days in college used to start.
So it was weird realizing that we hadn’t met, and that it hadn’t occurred to either of us that such a long time had passed between meeting each other. Clearing out what we had for the evening, we had dinner, caught up – and owing to the fact that we have no overlapping subjects with each other, tried to gauge what the others’ challenges were. We went for a walk, set-up some IT infrastructure, got some shopping done – and when I returned home, I realized I don’t feel homesick because I often carry pieces of home with me wherever I go. In small ways, for example I’ve had the same alarm clock for the past 12 years of my life, and I’ve carried that everyone.
In Cambridge it appears as though that has happened in a large way: both of us seem to have carried people.
Like most other Indian kids born around the late 1990’s and 2000, my love affair with hockey begins at the meeting point of Chak De India!, a coach, and my friends. In late-2006 and early-2007, I was cricket-mad. I’d been following cricket religiously for close to 5 years by that point, and playing it seriously, with leather-ball coaching for half a year. The net sessions were grueling but extremely enjoyable. I’d play with friends at school and loved it, and I’d play at a friend’s house, in his room, for hours on-end. More about that is here. However, I was never one to shy away from new sports. My parents encouraged it, my school encouraged it even more. So it was that turf was laid out in school [with rubber], a hockey coach was brought in, alongwith 25-30 fluorescent yellow sticks, and we began to be trained in this crazy sport.
It was insane.
We had Games periods, and all of our Games periods, as a collective Grade 4 class, ended up going in training with Stallone sir. I found his name pretty amusing at the time, because he reminded me of Sylvester Stallone and I was just off a Rocky phase, but there he was, teaching us the absolute fundamentals. How to pass a ball along the ground, how to trap a ball, and how to push the ball into the net. As one of the only left-handed people in class trying to play the sport, he had a unique challenge with me, and I remember him vividly trying to explain me to how to turn my body around so I ended up behind the ball on the correct [right-handed] side to trap it more accurately. I never ended up successfully doing it, and my passing was pretty woeful because I had no power at all in my right-hand, but he persevered with me. In our Games periods, he’d split us up into mixed teams and make us all play these mini matches, which we thoroughly enjoyed.
We slowly began to develop individually and collectively. We learned the rules and regulations: not to use the back of the stick, to ensure the ball didn’t hit our feet, and to try our hardest not to commit fouls by aggresively tackling and making people fall by hitting them with the stick. The sticks at school were pretty small, so they were very fun to play with, and he taught us to take more powerful shots, swinging hard at the ball. While everyone learned that skill right-handed, the first thing he taught me was the reverse-hit, because that came to me more naturally. So it was that the left-hander in me felt consoled and tended to, and learned there was a sport that was right-hand dominant that reserved a special kind of shot for us, and a nice little cross-pass technique too. Stallone sir was really good at coaching and motivating kids – and I think we were all so enthused by this new sport that we took to his coaching gleefully.
I ended up dividing my time between hockey and cricket. Cricket was still the more serious sport at home and at school, with school team trainings, weekend net sessions and practices, and games with friends, but hockey ended up becoming the sport that brought out more joy. My friends and I started to play within enclosed air-conditioned spaces in the ground floor of our apartment complex. They were all physically more fit than I was, and I remember being so impressed at how they ran with the ball, and the ball just seemed to go with them as they sprinted everywhere. On the other hand I’d really struggle with it: I’d either take a first touch too hard and lose control of the ball altogether because I couldn’t keep up, or I’d end up in a slow jog and someone would tackle me.
Hockey was super fun at school because Stallone sir mixed the boys and the girls together. It was one of those sports we all learned together, so at the start, I don’t think he saw any reason to split us off. As a result, playing together provided the kind of interaction for us we had never had before. The girls used to play basketball (I hardly remember any guys playing basketball), and the boys used to play football and cricket. Everyone did athletics and swimming when required, but hockey was the first sport that brought us all together in Games period, and not just summer camp. It broke down a lot of the cootie barriers we had.
Then Chak De India! was released. Damn, what a movie. There are parts of it I now find strange, and disagree with, but it was remarkable to me that there was this hockey, and this sports accomplishment in my home country I had no clue about. The tactics they showed in the movie, the physicality of the sport, it all appealed to me and I knew I was in love with it immediately. I spent a week convincing my mother I needed a stick to play with – using the convenient excuse that I was left-handed and so would benefit from a different type of stick (all a bahana – I’m sure she saw straight through it), but we went to Lulu and we bought a 60 Dhs. Karson hockey stick, which I carried with me to school everyday to play with.
Then came the tournament. We were invited to Cambridge International School in Abu Dhabi for a 7-a-side mixed indoor tournament, and we were so excited, I think Stallone sir basically took half our class to the tournament. I look at the photos we have, I’m so glad for facebook, and I can see all of my close school friends from that time in the photographs. We all bought shin-pads to play with, and everyone had their own sticks by this time. It was an absolute blast. I don’t think we did well at all – in fact, I can remember only one goal from the entire tournament (that my friend scored), but we enjoyed ourselves so much! By this time, hockey-wise, Stallone sir really was encouraging us to have fun. Outside of game-time, when I remember him being quite strict, he was teaching us how to scoop, how to juggle the ball (which one of the Keegans picked up very well).
My uncle, who really enjoyed pampering me – asked me what I wanted for his last birthday we’d spend together in Dubai. I wanted a Slazenger hockey stick. So we drove down to GoSport, in Dubai Festival City, on a weekday evening, and went through everything on offer in the shop, and picked up a fibreglass Slazenger hockey stick. I used that for the rest of the year, making sure I didn’t play with it indoor, only when I was on a field – out of worry that it’d be scratched.
And then I relocated to India. When I first visited Indus International School, where I was set to enroll, I saw how many sports facilities they had, and I was very intrigued by the fact that they didn’t have junior hockey. As an international school with boarding facilities and such a vast expanse of land, it felt easy to demarcate one area for junior hockey-playing. Seniors apparently played, but not very seriously. When I asked the admissions officer about this, she seriously remarked to me that I could make a reasonable request that junior hockey be offered at school. You see, there’s no real difference between junior hockey and senior hockey except field dimensions and maybe more rigorous coaching because we’re trying to learn the sport. At that time of course, I had no idea, and I was grateful that somebody might listen to what I had to say.
So it was that in July 2008 (I still have the e-mail), a month after I relocated, I wrote up a statement of purpose and sent it into the admissions office. This was my introductory paragraph:
Hockey is a very popular sport and is the national sport of India. I like hockey a lot and am looking to achieve a lot in it. I want to represent Indus International School in Inter-School tournaments and after I become big want to play international hockey for India. It challenges all players mentally as well as physically. e.g.- If you are in the opponent’s ‘D’ and your player is covered by your opponent, you need to think to either pass to him or shoot the ball from whatever distance you’re in from the goal. That’s how it challenges the players mentally.
I look back now amused, but at that time, I was very impressed. So impressed, that I used Comic Sans MS:
I’m not kidding.
My parents were quite impressed with how serious I was about this, and most of the school was too. I remember meeting the CEO of the School as well as my Principal, which at my young age felt rather cool. My friends back in Dubai gave me a fair amount of encouragement – especially my best friend, who kept updating me with how Stallone sir had really taken hockey at school to new heights, with proper teams practicing and playing regularly. I can’t quite tell how much of a role my SOP had with things, but I got approval and stayed back every Tuesday to play hockey at school.
In my complex, my tennis coach, who was custodian of the colony (as President of the Welfare Association), and someone I called Uncle because he was my mother’s friend – doubled up as a hockey companion. I dribbled around against him in front of his house a couple of times, with both of us deciding not to play there any more because of the un-evenness of the surface. We moved to the children’s park once, but then I think my enthusiasm faded slightly, especially with opportunities coming up to play in school.
It was just me in Grade 6, but Bhowmik sir at school really made time for me every single Tuesday. He spent time with me largely on my fitness and stamina, and in the cricket nets, set up dribbling exercises for me. We worked on my scoop shot even more. As exams rolled around, I stopped staying back on Tuesdays, but Bhowmik sir reeled me back in. I ended up playing a few cricket games for school in the U-10 category (because I had a year on me at the time), but hockey was really what kept me going in Grade 6 as I adjusted to this new school.
Grade 7 rolled around, and a couple of new people joined school. One from South Africa, and one from Germany. A few other people from our class joined in with us – because they had played hockey before as well. A senior hockey coach joined as well, and suddenly from one, we became quite a few of us who cared about the sport. The footballers joined in with us too – and we began to play during sports sessions where we were free to pick a sport (I played badminton in the other period). It was then that it became apparent to me how much physical fitness I still lacked, so I focused on doing some basic things as best as I could, but I was not really much of a match for the footballers – who could generate a ton of power in their legs to support some very hard hits. We once played a game of regular hockey players against the footballers and lost some 0:5 in school, and I remember feeling rather humiliated. I continued to stay back on Tuesdays, and worked with Bhowmik sir and the hockey coach (whose name I cannot recall at all unfortunately) – which led to a rather sudden inclusion in the Under-17 Hockey Team to play a Rotary tournament.
This was a massive highlight – really. I wrote an e-mail to my dad when it happened, asking for hockey shin-guards (because my old ones were not good enough for outdoor tournaments) with ankle support, and hockey stockings – and on his next trip to India, I had a pair of white colour Adidas shin-guards I was very happy with. I just looked through our chats, and I don’t know why I got frustrated with him when he asked me very reasonable questions about the shin-guards. He just asked for specifics: what size, what colour, where to buy them, and my responses reek of an irritation I can’t quite fathom. Sorry for that, Appa.
One of my friends in Grade 7 gifted me a new blue Rakshak hockey stick – which held a lot of sentimental value, because as an Indian brand, it reminded me of the Vijayanti stick in Chak De India!, and also was a stick the Indian hockey team used. I took that and the Slazenger to the tournament, where I came on as a second-half substitute in two group-stage matches, and confuddled my rather-senior, big, teammates by playing reverse-stick half the time. They yelled at me, I remember, which scared me because I was 4’8 or something at the time, puny, and these were 5’9-6’2 monsters. As a day scholar, I wasn’t close to any seniors – the boarders appeared to develop a bond, so I remember spending the bus ride back to school with the German 7th Grader who was also included on the team to his surprise.
The rest of the year was pretty uneventful. I played hockey with two or three people in Sports Hour: one v. two. When I moved to Inventure Academy, I tried asking around about hockey – and the school’s CEO had played and was interested, but my own interest seemed to be dipping. I stopped playing hockey altogether, switching over to basketball and tennis more seriously, developing those to a good, social level. Hockey became the sport I used to let out frustration from time-to-time, going onto the terrace of our house with a stick and a ball and whacking it against the wall. Truly though, I must’ve done this 4 times in the remaining 5 years I spent in Bangalore.
My love for hockey didn’t ever die though. I watched highlights of several matches, and watched a lot of the FIH games that happened if they coincided with dinner. I was really happy when the Hockey India League was founded, following those games with a sadness that there was no South Indian team. My sadness was underscored by the fact that Karnataka, and Coorg especially, was the cradle of Indian hockey – with legends like Len Aiyappa and M.P. Ganesh hailing from the region.
Having not played at high school, nor at undergraduate University, when I applied abroad, on 20 September 2019, I made this declaration that I’d play hockey wherever I went next. Cambridge has a lovely hockey tradition, and through Fresher’s Fair, I was able to sign-up and although St Edmund’s didn’t have a team, able to find two mixed college teams to play with.
I got myself the equipment, including a mouth-guard for the first time in my life (my canines are so grateful), and turned up to play for Selwyn/Trinity Hall on the weekend. To my teammates, during practice, I tried making it apparent to them that I had not played for ages, and I had last played on mud, not on turf. I don’t think I prepared them enough for how much I really needed their help to improve. Initially they stuck me up-top, which I now regret, because within 10 minutes I was so tired of making runs that I just dropped back and played defence the rest of the game, hardly moving out of my own D. It was 7-a-side half-pitch, and for the life of me I can’t imagine what playing full games will look like.
I made a bunch of mistakes, slipped up a couple of times and fell onto the turf, brazing my knee, we lost 1:7, but I was playing hockey again – after ten years. I was beaming when I came home. This year is probably going to be a long year in terms of improving in hockey, and I’m going to try to play in the lower College leagues to get up to Selwyn’s level if I can, something more relaxed to improve my skills first – but I was so very happy. My parents saw it, as did a couple of friends, and truly, I am so grateful to them both for supporting my desire to play the sport the first time by buying me the gear, and now, again, by buying bits of gear.
It’s crazy to think how many people help you to get here. People like Stallone sir who first taught me how to pick up the stick, to Bhowmik sir, who really had no obligation to stay back with me and play hockey with me for two years – to people I had never met in my life who answered my queries about Cambridge hockey over e-mail very politely and were okay with me joining in their weekend game having not played for so long.
One day I hope to hit a drag flick again and have enough confidence to play the entire game right-handed. That is likely to take a very long time.
Tejas Rao 