Eventful to say the least

Arseblog.com. Yes, it is two words, "arse" and "blog". What if I told you that I read a blog named so.

Despite sounding eerily like exactly the kind of website you would be wary of your 12 year old son coming across and like the kind of content that one does not speak openly of reading, that too on his own blog, I confess, I read it almost daily. Because the subject of the blog is not the "Arse", it's something bigger. Bigger by three letters in fact. The Arsenal. Arsenal Football Club from Islington in North London.

To say I follow keenly, the club and the team is something of an understatement. Perhaps it is the entity that occupies my cranium for the largest proportion of time in the holidays and surely comes a close second to physics in similar statistics for term months.

About a week back, I was basking in the glory of The Arsenal winning the FA Cup, football's oldest knockout cup-competition, thus ending a tumultuous period of nine years without winning a single competitive trophy, in the middle of which run I began to support the club and join the family of "Gooners". Despite it being more than 10 days ago, I recall perfectly what happened on that Saturday night; probably will do so for the rest of my life.

It is hard to explain. A gush, an absolute tsunami of happiness. At that instant everything else feels insignificant. All else is in fact insignificant. I'm not really sure what I did, just sure what I felt. Having subdued a yelp of happiness (for fear of drawing the entire neighbourhood to my doorstep), I clenched my fist, held back the tears when THAT goal was scored with ten minutes of the game left and anxiously continued to watch the final of the FA Cup.

Ten minutes, and about 7645349834 minor as well as major cardiac-arrests later, the referee blew the whistle that signaled the end of the game, thus sounding like the end to all suffering humanity endures, giving way to unmitigated delight that had me retaining a smile on my face for nearly three days. The tears flowed, then stopped, then flowed, then stopped. My skin resembled the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes combined. All was glee, my friends, fans of rival clubs grudgingly registered their congratulations.

That summed it up for me. I didn't do a thing. Yet they all congratulated me. And all my fellow Gooners. They said, "You guys deserved to win the trophy". I didn't win a thing; but it was a victory for all of us. A feeling of belonging that is unparalleled. No wonder that sport has captured the imagination of humanity for time immemorial. And beyond a point, it isn't about success, winning, patriotism, ideology or particular individuals. The beginning is mysterious. And after that, the sense of belonging simply endures. To quote two great footballers, Arsenal, Ajax and Dutch legend Dennis Bergkamp and some Manchester Uniter Player Eric Cantona :

"When you start supporting a football club, you don't support it because of the trophies, or a player, or history. You support it because you found yourself somewhere there, found a place where you belong." 
Dennis Bergkamp 

"You can change your wife, your politics, your religion, but never, never can you change your favourite football team." 
Eric Cantona 

The week following the cup has been eventful, to say the least. It was followed by a five day trip to Himachal Pradesh, the land of the Himalayas. After that, meeting up with old friends, rolling back the years back in Bangalore. Yet it is the memories of a Cup victory of a wee football team 8000 kilometres from my home that rightfully should have absolutely nothing to do with a young Indian boy that is still fresh in my memory.

Thank You Arsenal, and Thank You Arsene Wenger.