Life Skills

Effortless life skill

First stop, food for thought:

Did you guys ever realize that the act of “doing research” is shiny, glossy term we use for “getting fucked with work”? So next time someone comes up to you and says, “I am doing research,” you can wink and say “I know what you mean ‘bro’.

Anyways here’s the actual blog:

From the very first bits of oxygen we desperately take to fill our lungs to the very last, we learn to adapt in an environment that is, let’s say, alien to us. The adaptation is done through a medium of “skill” that we develop, like learning a language or by shrilling in a higher tone, depending on a certain goal that abets us to adapt to a particular situation.

I too am no different.

One skill that took me a while to learn was the art of actually saying “gaga” or “mumu” or in other words, my first proper senseless yet sensible speech. So much so that my parents were worried enough to take me to a shaman and whisper words of murmurs just so that I could start speaking. You realize the magnitude of the situation once you come to know the fact that they are not a very religious folk.  

In a twist of fate, I began talking but later than most kids normally would. Unfortunately,I wouldn't shut up which might have made my parent's regret their shaman decision. I can’t blame them either. If I had a kid who was exactly like me, I would have just thrown him off the varanda as a favor to the world.

Swaying back to the topic, I slowly began to learn to walk, walk to the toilet, clean my own bawls, brush my teeth (I still apply the 30 second each side rule), co-ordinate my hands, co-ordinate it to throw all of my kindergarten books into the dumpster and so on. It was like each day you were discovering life and what you could actually do about it instead of life kicking the shite out of you. Interesting phase.

One of the first of many milestones came around 1996 when my knee was strapped with protective gears, hands wore a pair of gloves and my head a helmet to insure I wouldn't hurt myself while falling flat on the arse on a cemented pitch. You guessed it didn’t you, learning to ride the bike was possibly the single most problematic pain in the buttocks skill that any kid has to go through besides learning to be not angry, case in particular, with the guy who is busy typing this down. Not only does it require concentration, but requires proper hand, leg co-ordination and most importantly, some balls. I think that’s the first time you experience the fear of falling off of something that is dynamic and anyone who has remotely done so will wish that it happened to somebody else and not him or her. 

At around the same time, I was also developing this innate skill to glue my eyes on tv, particularly a cartoon that depicted people passing around round like objects and getting ecstatic all of a sudden as if to celebrate a million dollar lottery win. Little did I know that what I was watching was a game of overly exaggerated, slow motioned and time consuming football. I was instantly intrigued, drawn towards the fact that players could actually shoot a ball with fire blazing from the other side, knock the keeper out cold, tear the net and disappear into the abyss. You will notice my disappointment at not being able to do so on my first kick or the millionth time. Stupid cartoons.

Golie life basics#1
Dive god dammit.
Even if the balls straight at you.

But you won't believe what that actually inspired me to do. Having watched it for some time, I decided that the cap wearing, super goalie dude was what I seriously aspired to become. The problem now was that I needed somebody to kick the ball at me. Fortunately, I devised a way without having to bribe candies to the Chinese girl up floor (I wonder where she is right now). All I had to do was kick the ball as hard as I could onto a wall and copy-dive, save it and look cool. I wore a red cap just to make sure the scene was as authentic as it could get.

Of course, this gave my parents a major headache. The apartment that we were living housed 50 different families and the odds that some angry dad might come and knock on the front door was increasing every day. Add to the fact that my parents were horrified that their 6 year old was diving on a cemented floor.

After weighing on options, my parents thought that it would be best if I joined a local club and practiced with real kids for a change. The coach put me in a team while my folks watched from the stands and blew his whistle. Instead of putting me in the goalie position I so desperately wanted, he assigned me to the full back position and I flunked. Our team lost 8-1. After cleaning up, I overheard the coach telling my disappointed parents that their son had absolutely no talent in football and that they should take him home. After some necessary melo-drama and havoc inside the club’s dining hall courtesy of me, I finally headed towards the exit.

And it has been an exit ever since. Some things, you see, are never meant to be.