CHERISHED & NOURISHING FAILURES

By Joshua Cherian Varughese

S

and mixed with sweat stuck to most of his visible body as if a woman in her lust, His veins came out like stretched bows ready to shoot the arrow as he looked at the pole with a grimace on his face. There was no confidence in his teary eyes but there was that undefeatable attitude in his eyes which shouted  “I’m gonna do this damn thing!!”. He bent down as if to break into a sprint. Then he let the backward leg slip a little bit before his forward leg took his weight. The next step was sure and so was the next and the one after that. He was in full speed by then, his head slightly bowed but his teary eyes were still on the pole that he had to cross. He knew he had never even tried it before but he just had to do it for whatever reason he did not know. His friends had advised him to take a diagonal run up and try a scissor cut which everyone else was doing. But he somehow could not digest that again for whatsoever reason he did not know. He ran head on to the pole like a ram meeting its rival in a fight. The pole was near, he knew this jump was his last chance. He had cleared many heights earlier but had missed the last two which were attributed to the awkward style in high jumping against the tried and tested methods. He knew he needed to clear this height to get at least the third place..the pole came nearer. It was a split second away now. He took a jump at least a foot away from the usual jumpers and went head first to the pole, his head crossed, belly crossed but the legs tripped on the pole and it went down with a clamor and echoed in the ground.

His face was in the sand, sweat dripped down his sand filled brows. He lifted his head in utter disappointment of not doing well in his first attempt at athletics. The pole was lying dead as it is in the sand but to his amazement people were clapping.  He could hear people occasionally saying “He goes like superman”. He went down to the place where the run up starts and saw his name being cut from the list of jumpers who’d proceed to fight for positions.  The school vice principal was standing there and he had a proud look on his face. He patted MY back and said “Well done”. I did not understand why he would appreciate a loser nor did I know why anyone was clapping even when the pole fell. I did not know that when people would see me on the way they would whisper to each other saying, “this is the guy who high jumps like superman”. Little did I know what lesson I would learn that day, that day made an impact so deep that it etched a nourishing wound in my heart for good. That day taught me to lose and to lose in style; to put the thousand and first effort and then lose with flying colours. That day taught me to lose and lose and lose but never be defeated. That day taught me to say “never” to giving up.

That day was my first day on training which taught me to push hard and harder until my perception of my limit extends further and further. The hot afternoons that I roamed in the sun, the kilometers that I walked without ever complaining, the days I went without quality food, amenities  are attributed to that training which started on that day, that which continued into several school & college, state & national athletic meets covering a span of almost ten years in my life. That overshoot which budded on my life that day led to those valuable days surrounded by smell of volini, sound of spikes piercing grounds of different colours and the taste of sand and sweat in our mouths. Those days when blood heats up to such temperatures that you feel that you are gonna explode in that excitement, those were days of action and little words. I’m afraid the days of words has started and I don’t like it!!

DIRT KINGS

DIRT KINGS 

“we stand on the dirt and not in it!!”

By Joshua Cherian Varughese

Prelude:“All we did was grind a little bit more dirt at various dirt tracks. But we did it in such a way that the world stared agape”

The black moisture laden soil sifted through my fingers back into the ground as I crushed it in my fists. My nails were long muddy; my black hair had turned brown with tonnes of dust in it. Grease was all over me. I was ‘dirty’ in the words of the outside world. People who knew me would probably not have recognised me. It had been two years – for me ‘two years’ was a long time - but I knew I never felt it all the time. I had walked it as if it was a week or two. I knew I could do it for a long time before I’d be tired of it. (I usually get tired of stuff very fast)

It’s not a story that I have to tell; it’s not an anecdote with well built exaggerations and interesting metaphors. It’s an account from the heart of a boy becoming man. I was a boy when I started doing what I do , back then I did it just because I loved the idea. But slowly it shaped me – my hands became hard in texture but smooth in handling spanners, cutters, knives and various other machines; my heart became hard as it learned to fail and not be defeated but it became soft to my brothers around me. It taught me to be who I am inside and not to be what I was not. I thirsted for victory – to stand and shout on the stands with my veins swelling in my neck, the name at the sound of which my hair stands up straight – DAKSH. It taught me to lead when there was no leader, to be led when there was one. It taught me to laugh when there was no reason to and to smile at raging storms. It taught me brotherhood of those whose shoulders which would stand against mine no matter what stood before us.

(My brothers who are made of the same substance that I am made of.  Those brothers who’d pull their ‘lubb dubbing’ hearts out of their chest at the sound of an engine roaring. Those brothers who’d gladly stand in my shoes if they had to - when I went through trouble. I remember a man who disrespected one of my brothers a couple of days back – my heart skipped a beat, my blood boiled, I stepped in front of that man and my brother looking the man in the eye as if to say “Now you talk to me, bugger”)

Somewhere an engine chocked and died out. Some other engines were still running of those who were still trying to prove their mettle. As I stood in that dirt track where I had been for several days in the past two years, I knew that I had proved myself. It took time, hard efforts, guts to dream dreams that my fellows never dared to dream. But now at the end of two hard years, the shapeless dirt racing ‘car’ that my brothers and I built had proved a better machine against the dirt. As I sat in the afternoon sun with its rays beating down my shoulders, with crowns of the dirt track all over me (dirt and grease), I knew I was more a man than I was the day before.

We bleed, we sweat, we burn, we get tanned, our clothes smell, our hair endlessly unkempt but when it comes to dirt racing we just keep on rolling – NOTHING STOPS US!!