Underdogs and Sentimentalism*

Back to the good ol’ days of watchin cricket. I have been brooding and thinking about things that promise a lot but only end up disappointing me. So it was a welcome change to watch a lot of sport and of course the dazzling penelope's et al on the red carpet over the weekend (My mum was surprised to find me awake at 6 00 am Monday morning and commended my determination to wake up early to catch the Oscars !)

As i said, I watched cricket over the weekend after maybe , hmm, eons I guess . It was Australia Vs New Zealand, and as always I rooted for NZ. The fervent hope that some kind of a miracle was in the waiting lingered on and on, even though the match was clearly heading the Aussies’ way. This has slways been the case. If it were India versus any other country, I’d obviously back India. Any country vs Sri Lanka, Any country it would be. These are the couple of axioms which I adhere to zealously. Else, I realized it was something innate in me to root for the underdog. I thought of the other possibilities. Zim V/s SA, Zim it’d be to the last ball, though there’s not even an infinitesimal possibility that they’d win in the present circumstances with Mugabe breathing fire down the asses of Streaks and the like. Pak Vs Aus, definitely Pak. And on and on, I can go ahead with umpteen examples. This not only applies to cricket. Now this is a thought that strikes me. I remember the times when I'd join a new school (I’ve changed schools four times in my life, though these have been really early in life) and feel that singular delight I could take from coming from behind, from an unknown guy to beating the established figures at the new school. NOT sadistic pleasure, please. I guess it is an inherent trait that used to show its head this way in my childhood. Now it probably peeks out silently, sometimes without my knowledge, through other actions of mine. Why even the suave Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca plays the eternal underdog Rick Blaine, where he fights wars on the side of the underdogs. So the question arises: the same one that Captain Renault poses to Rick, is the underdog always necessarily a sentimentalist? Is he a cynic with a gossamer veil underneath which there lies the quintessential sentimentalist? Hmm Am I such a person? I definitely know that are no deceptive facets to my character. There’s no question of me hiding behind a secret and unreal veil.. I’m convinced about this. But I still cannot answer the latter part about the sentimentalist. That may require a bit more introspection, that'd be when I attain higher levels of joblessness!. Of course, skipping topics randomly is my forte, as you would have realized by now. :d

*Now is that even a word in the English language?