The Big Game on the Big Screen and this Girl called Meera

 

December 18th,2022

The world cup football was to be played between Argentina and France. The CMS college was showing it live on the big screen.

By the time I reached the Great Hall, it was jam-packed with football-frenzy youngsters in their teens or early twenties. I was the only one with grey hair. With no chance to even enter the Great Hall, I stood dejected at the entrance when my friend Midhun condescended like a Messiah and took me to the front and managed to get a seat for me. The position of the seat was such that it provided a difficult angle to the screen. Seeing this, a girl seated next to me offered to exchange her seat with mine which provided a better angle. I thankfully declined her offer as she too had come there to watch the match. I could sense the care the girl was trying to provide me. When a seat next to her became vacant instead herself moving to that better position she forced me to move in and I obliged. To reciprocate her loving care to a stranger like me I asked who she was. To my surprise she told me that she was a 2^nd year BSc student of Physics in CMS I was even more surprised as she had given me all that care without realising that I had one taught in her department. Meera. That was her name.

Forty years from now, Meera, then only in her fifties,would be watching the world cup football on what screen, with what technology, God alone knows.

If Meera reads this post now, I am sure she will remember me then; yes forty years from now.

Time, Technology and some memories

 

This is a story from 1984. The Olympics that year was at Los Angeles, USA. Then with no TV we had no means to watch the greatest event on the globe. The Indian hockey team had won gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. I still remember the picture in newspapers of the captain V Bhaskaran and his men in jubilation. After four decades India has not won the gold again in men’s hockey. Even the gold at Moscow was from a depleted field with the US and its allies boycotting the event at the height of the cold war.

The event was still in progress and one day the local administration made an announcement that the event will be shown live on a TV set installed at the Thirunakkara Maidanam. The sports lovers of Kottayam could not ask for more. On the day of the hockey match between India and Germany, I and Kuruppachan (C Sreekanta Kurup), then in our twenties reached the maidanam well before the start of the game expecting a big crowd. But there were only very few people, may be less than ten, to watch the match that ended in a goal less draw. After the match was over, two men, in their late seventies came to us and told us that they have been here some forty years before to listen to the radio broadcast for the first time!

Another forty years elapsed. On the 18^th December, 2022, I watched the Football world cup finals on the big screen inside the great hall, CMS college.

In 1940’s those two men listened to the radio broadcast at the Thirunakkara Maidanam. At the very same venue I and Kuruppachan watched the Olympics on the TV on the 6^th august, 1984. Almost forty years later I watched my favourite team Argentina winning and Messi kissing the coveted trophy on the big screen.

Forty years from now, who knows what the technology will be. One thing we can say with certainty is that technology never stops, it keeps galloping and we have to, keep pace with it.

Am an Argentina fan

 

During the early seventies I was a reader of the German magazine “The German News”. An uncle of mine was a regular subscriber to it. It was through this magazine I first heard about Willy Brandt who was a socialist leader and also the Chancellor of Germany. Reading more and more about him I became a fan of his. I became a fan of two more Germans. They were the great football players named Gerd Muller and Franz Beckenbauer. Both were big names in international football and Beckenbauer had the nick name 'Der Kaiser' meaning 'the emperor'.  Then I was a fan of the Dutch footballer, the handsome Johan Cruyff. He was a great proponent of the then new style called the 'Total Football'. I felt very sad when I read of his passing away in 2016. I had the same sense of loss when I read in news papers that the Brazilian player Socrates was no more. He was a medical doctor, in fact a paediatrician. Unfortunately both while being among the all time greats were heavy smokers. That’s another story.

Till the 1978 world cup I was not a fan or supporter of any country.  Television was yet to arrive. The radio didn’t give much information regarding the world cup.  As far as I remember (not very clear), those days I got sports news from two sports magazines, “The Sports Star” and the “Sports World”. The editor of Sports World was the great Manzoor Ali Khan Pataudi. Both magazines carried beautiful pictures of sports persons in action. During the 1978 world cup I became a fan of the flamboyant Mario Kempes and Argentina too. I think their jersey held some sort of a romantic fascination for me. That simple design of broad light blue stripes is an iconic one for me. From Mario Kempes to De Maria, from Maradona to Messi .......

Yes I am an Argentina fan.

Alma Mater, Alumni and some musings - 3

 

After reading my previous two posts some people told me that they sensed something  disturbing. They wanted to know the reason if I am really disturbed. Indeed, I am, after this year’s alumni meet on the 26^th of January.

VIDYA SOUHRUDHAM

Vidya Souhrudham. That’s the name of the Alumni Association of the CMS college. But this year it all started with no vidya and scant souhrudham. It is customary to have the  business meeting before the inaugural function where the new office bearers are selected.  Since I was never interested in these meetings, as usual, I remained outside the Great Hall. Meeting old students, who come there as “old students and old students  alone” with their minds filled with reverence for their Alma mater and love for their teachers and friends, is always a matter of great joy. While roaming around the campus I ran into a group which was in a jubilant mood, yet their language was very aggressive and slightly abusive. I could quickly understand that they were giving  vent to their anger against the “autocratic” and “audacious” principal who tried to bring the Vidya Souhrudham under the control of the college. Their jubilance was over the disruption of the meeting and the hurdles they could put before principal. They were bragging,how with number in their favour they could do this. This is a grey side of democracy, I told myself. Here heads don’t count, only headcounts count. Isn’t that grey matter doesn’t count a grey side of democracy? Some of the ordinary people like me there started asking among themselves; what is wrong in the association being under the college. Some of them narrated their experiences with other colleges where they were once students. They all were unanimous in their resolve that CMS is the only place where they can step into with a sense of belonging, remain there meeting teachers and friends, enjoy the unmatched beauty of the campus and leave with a greater sense of belonging and a pious aspiration to come back again and again.

A powerful group had come well prepared, with mustered headcounts, to spoil the business meeting. They emerged victorious as it always happens in CMS college and in CMS college alone. For over the past four decades I have remained a mute spectator to many a group hijacking the college and its activities. This time another aggressive group could successfully hijack another programme. This is the latest and can be the last if the college administration is resolute in freeing the college from evil forces.

I have often heard people saying that unlike other colleges CMS is different and it belongs to all. All who come here, all who roam here, all who booze here and have to be lifted away? I would ask these people to pause for a moment, shed their prejudices and ponder for a moment over what they have given back to their Alma mater to make inflated claims.The principal Dr Varghese C Joshua “after getting defeated and had to flee from the business meet” (this was what the jubilant group, I mentioned in the beginning of this note, was claiming) made a very powerful yet emotional speech during the inaugural function. He spoke of how the Alma mater is uniquely  important to its alumni. He enumerated how the alumni can support the institution and how important it is for the alumni to understand its romantic, spiritual and intellectual duties. May I advise you to watch the speech on the YouTube.

While being critical of those who came with malicious intents and drummed up support, I think I should thankfully mention the names of three alumni who have been working for years now, without any publicity. Their hard work never gets acknowledged as they always remain behind the scenes. Theirs certainly is a devotion to the college. I want to write their names here. Abu, Kiran and Roshia.