The Messi factor

For the past few days the media had gone for an overkill on Messi.The prince of football was coming to the city of joy and what could be more happening. The city was alive with excitement. I am not a sports lover but compared to cricket I always enjoyed watching football. I was perhaps more influenced by the competitiveness and rivalry that existed between ghoti and bangal camps in my younger days. The match was in the evening and I was planning to see bits of it and hopefully catch glimpses of the Messi-magic. But Messi appeared in our lives in many different ways than we had imagined.

I was expecting an urgent call from my colleague in Pune yesterday evening. We had to discuss something important. By the time I had packed up and was about to leave for home it was nearly seven. My colleague failed to call up. Once inside the cab as I had settled down for about an hour’s introspective journey back home , I get this sms from my colleague” sorry cud not make it .my son insisted that I come back home to watch Messi …” My colleague is a single mom and her young son is her world. I called her later in the night and we had a good laugh as she recounted all the madness that her son had made her endure during the last few days.

The usual evening crowd at the corner tea stall near my apartment was also missing yesterday. It looked so peaceful. It was however not so peaceful elsewhere. My brother had been gifted two complimentary tickets for the match .He had promised to take his daughter along .However being a weekday and a busy day at work he completely forgot about the tickets. As a result the inevitable happened. In the evening he had to face the music at home. It was total non-cooperation from his daughter- who sat with a glum face all night in front of the telly.

Many diehard football fans missed yesterday’s match simply because the tickets were exorbitantly priced. My office electrician complained that being a festive season common people had too many expenses to bear this month. And football crowds generally do not come from affluent sections of the city. Hence the match was not really sold out completely. Ultimately he blamed “Didi” for not doing anything about it .I did not realise that even Messi had a stake in preserving Mamatadi’s popularity.

Link to photograph above
http://www.rediff.com/sports/slide-show/slide-show-1-kolkata-football-friendly-argentina-vs-venezuela-lionel-messi-higuain-di-maria/20110903.htm