Romancing tennis are we?

Sigh! another French Open has passed by. French open is a sign. Its a sign that half the year has gone by. That summer is over. That the earth is no longer parched. Its time for green fecundity. For wimbledon. for my 24th birthday. time to get seriously wiser

I like the French Open. Its my 2nd favourite open after wimbledon. I like the glamour of paris, the chanel suits, the snooty noses and ofcourse the slide type tennis. My first ever tennis memory was of Seles winning the French Open. My dad really liked her. I loved her. she was my tennis idol and as my bro loved Steffi Graf, we were bitter rivals. I hated graf back then, and any encounter between the two of them turned in to a heated (sometimes abusive) battle at home. Remember the Graf-Seles French Open Final, that Seles won 10-8 (in think) in the final? oh that was glorious. But sadly that rivalry came to an end thanks to a deranged graf fan. I hated graf all the more. Damn tennis was a saga back then.

Ofcourse after the french open came wimbledon and somehow it seemed so right.. to move from the starved clay to green luscious grass. I love it when its wimbledon. In the past, school would have begun by then. It was new class, freshly bound notebooks with that virgin notebook smell, neat first page handwriting, new uniforms and then on coming home there would be wimbledon on DD with some BBC guy giving some stolid commentary. The world felt so right then.

I've sat up late into the night to see some awesome tennis with my dad and bro and those are some of my most cherished memories. I remember becker's last wimbledon match against sampras. I remember watching McEnroe in his twilight years and every time he'd get disgusted, someone in the crowd would hold up a poster that said , "You Can't Be Serious!!". oooh remember goran invanisevic? I remember him in his first wimbledon final aginst agassi which he lost and that was particularly painful because I loved him in my 9 year old heart and then came his redemption in 2001 where he beat Pat rafter. I seriously wept that day, seeing him win, seeing some one get what they most covet. And then there was that Graf -novotna final. It's still so vivid for me. Novotna leading in the final set, a break ahead and I was doing a jig around my brother. No effing way Graf was going to win and then good old DD dramatically lost tranmission. I was so confident that graf was going to lose and when DD finally got live feed, Graf was ahead and was serving for the match!!!. It's still the biggest WHAT DA...moment of my life. oh I loved DD's coverage of wimbledon. It was so quaint, I still prefer it over any of your star sports-ESPN jazzy digital coverage.

And then in this season of tennis there would be tennis fantasies. Yes, that I was world number one champion tennis player that had never EVER lost. In fact I had even achieved a double golden slam, I was that dominant. In my dreams I was a legend. I used to even sign on magazine covers with a felt pen and that would really annoy mom. I loved my interviews, which I gave in the bathroom to an imaginary interviewer. I was so awesome, modest and humble and oh so poised...

And watching Federer lose to Nadal this sunday, I felt that I lost a special moment. of missing being part of history. But still, there'll always be more tennis. Here's to more special moments.

Now Fed go get that wimbledon now!

Not quite according to script

Why is it that weekends that you look forward to always pass by rapidly? I mean before you know it, it’s gone. You wait for it. Wait the agonizing wait. You plan every detail in the back of your mind, till it’s practically a full length picture and then before you can say “Cut”. Its over. O-V-E-R

See I had planned this weekend trip over a month back, to be back in the city of my being, to be with my love, to be there on my folks’ birthday, to watch aerosmith and now, here I am on Wednesday in poona, thinking, now what do I do with my life??

Here’s how it panned out.

The Surprise (or so she thought)

I didn’t tell my parents that I was coming down for the weekend. I wanted to surprise them. To see the thrill in their eyes or so the movie went in my head. God, I was so chuffed that I was doing this. So I called them at 12 in the night, right outside the gate and Dad picks up the phone

Me: HI DAD (Excited and Giggly)

Dad: Huh who? (Obviously sleepy and not happy about being woken up)

Me: It’s me dad, Guess where I am? (still excited tho not quite giggly)

Dad: Why what happened? Why are you calling at this hour? What’s wrong? What? What? (Obviously not happy at all)

Me: Nothing dad. I’m right outside the Gate. Surprise!! (Doubts creeping upon on this whole surprise thing)

Dad: Surprise?? You call this surprise? You scared the hell out of me (Yes definitely not a good idea)

Yes, the surprise didn’t stick to the script and I entered the house quite meekly with my folks quite annoyed. Don't you wish sometimes that life imitated art and that you had background music for moments in your life.

The Haircut

They say choosing a hair dresser is as important as choosing a spouse. Actually I just made that up. But I truly believed that I had found my soul mate hair dresser. I’ve been going to that salon for about 4 years now and every cut I’ve had has made jump with I-can’t-believe-I-look-so good-joy. So with unshakeable faith in their abilities, I said simply, “Cut it short. Shoulder length. What ever looks good”. Lesson – Don’t EVER say What ever looks good. That phrase is haircut hara-kiri, because as any sensible person will tell you, beauty is subjective.

So she said ok, I’ll cut it in layers. The term “layers” has always turned out okay so I simply shrugged with my “you are the professional” confidence. That’s mistake number 2. Nobody is a professional. Long story short. Horrible hair cut with the one thing I detest the most and that’s a fringe. Who likes fringes? And why are they back in town? And she had the audacity to tell me that fringes look good on me.

The sad thing about haircuts is that there is no Consumer court type remedy. You’re stuck with it. DB my girl pal, said that it looked “Decent” and boy was more gracious and said that it looked “Nice” and this when I had gorgeous long tresses that I could toss haughtily. Pride comes before a bad haircut

The Concert

You know a concert is big when even your scientist mom asks “Who is this aerosmith? I want to see him”. My prev concert was the Roger waters concert and that was fun although we were way back and I couldn’t quite make him out from that distance. This time I was determined to get as close as possible, even if it meant climbing over people. We made it to the front row, although boy, who had smoked a doobie and was very happy with his stoned self, was reluctant to go there. I looked at him in disbelief, doobie or no doobie, we were going to go as close as it would take to see the motifs on Steven Tyler’s pants.

The concert rocked although, they didn’t quite sing the popular songs. Either that or I'm a non-fan. Seriously there were just 4-5 songs that I could sing too. I was disappointed that they didn’t sing “crazy” and it was hell crowded. But like I told bro later, atleast I gotta see Steven Tyler before he popped. Sigh I wish Pearl Jam would come to India now. Eddie, I turn my lonely eyes on you.

The Birthdays

My folks have their B’days on consecutive days which is very good thing because one can finish the gift shopping in one shot and also everyone is nice to one another for 2 consecutive days.

This time the celebration was rather low key. I guess it’s because all their peers were retiring and the whole mood was rather somber. My dad picked on the youth of this country and I was shown as a classic example of the decadence of this generation. Atleast I’m an example of something. Better to be an example of nothing than not being an example at all I say.

That’s my minutes of this weekend that has flown by. A weekend I rather enjoyed, despite the events. Now what do I do with my life?