sportsman's prayer

Saturday was a red letter day in Jispa’s life. Last week she came in dancing from school. She had learnt that she was the school placard bearer leading the march past at the sports day. That’s pretty cool. She would march in before everybody else, including the school flag bearer. Then she would lead the school into the oath. She would speak the oath and the school would repeat it after her. It was big freaking deal. It was a BFD for her and for us as well.

I asked her if she really wanted to be IT. yup sure she said. She recollected that when she was in the lower Kg a girl had taken eth oath and she thought it was dam cool. She had forgotten about it but when she learnt that she was IT then she was super excited. She got it possibly thanks to her consistent performances in the swimming pool and on the track and field events. She’s pretty athletic. Possibly the oath bit is also thanks in part to the fact that she excels in elocution.

I remember wanting to be IT. I wanted to be the guy giving the oath in school. I remember once it was administered by my brother’s friend. His name was Stephen Dias. He was a brilliant footballer and a really sweet guy. I wanted to do it. But amongst a string of missed chances this one too passed me by. So I was pretty happy when she was chosen. It amazing how much of my life I have ended up living with my daughter. It’s pretty surreal. Her achievements in sports, elocution and school have left me pretty moist eyed.

It’s a lovely feeling. People come and congratulate you as parents and we simply brush it off directing it to Jispa. But all this is a lot more complicated than it really is. A lot of factors come into play. But most importantly it simply is the process of adjustment to one and other. That is the true essence of family. Jasmine Jispa and I are constantly adjusting to each other. We all keep growing, keep shifting and keep changing. We try and reach our equilibrium which all economists know is a notoriously unstable state. It doesn’t stay steady at all. There are too many parameters at work. But if we largely work towards achieving it as opposed to disrupting it, you tend to remain in balance.

On one morning last week, Jispa told me as we were leaving for the pool, that she didn’t feel like swimming that morning. Sure but it’s your morning swimming that got you your position on the sports day, right? Ya. She replied. I guess she realized the value of all that hard work. It’s very tough on us parents to enforce discipline. Extremely difficult. How do you not become a tyrant while doing so? I guess jasmine and I take a simple stand. Let’s think through at a point if we want to do a certain activity or not. Do we want her to swim and does she want to swim. Once the call is taken we have to go to closure. Do we want her to study or not. Is it important for her to know the multiplication tables or not. Simple. You rack your brains once or every once in a while and come to an answer. Once you come to an answer you simply execute it. So no matter how tired I may be or sleep deprived, if she has to go to swim in the morning she has to go for a swim. I for one am very clear. If you don’t want to swim then its simple, let’s stop this crazy schedule.

It bugs me no end to be half way there. Jasmine deals with Jispa on a daily basis. She had a different set of issues. If she dictates like this, she would end up being a tyrant. But I am the dad who is away for most of the day. For me it’s simple to be in black or white about issues. Jasmine is all grey. Possibly that’s the way it is. Each one of us enforces on each other a set of paradigms. Each one of us is trying to push us and our paradigms. That’s the fun part. The trick is to get to a common boundary while pushing the edge but not tipping over. It’s easy for the parent to push the child, but getting the child to push the parent is very very difficult. I encourage it when I can but I too must admit that it is not possible. Our ego is far too high to allow for it. But I try.

At the end if my kid remembers me a fair parent, that’s what I will settle for. A fair deal. If she thought I was fair in giving her fair share of freedom, independence, protection, advice and learning; that’s all there is. And yes, her own fair share of credit.

Jispa did a lot because she is happy doing it all. She won her sprint titles for the 6^th year in a row. She has been unbeatable in sprint in her school. That’s pretty cool. This year in the 200 meters she was running along when I saw her being pushed by another kid, which made her go faster. On Sunday while swimming in the 100 meters freestyle, she clocked a personal best because there was her team mate in the adjoining lane. Jispa doesn’t have a natural killer instinct but she likes competing. It’s a bit of a paradox. I guess it’s a bit like me. Why kill something. Relax, try your best. In badminton these days, I see that I naturally raise or lower my game to the opponent’s level. I can’t get myself to kill shots and definitely I can’t play like that for extended periods of time. Possibly Jispa is like that. But I like that. A temperament for sports is not necessarily the one in life. Sports is easy. There is a winning and a pecking order. Life is more complicated. Two or more can win and must win if you want to win in the long run. The victory of one is not necessarily the defeat of the other. A bit of a difference form sport.

So sport doesn’t really teach you about winning in real life. No sir. I don’t think so. I see too many selfish people in sport. People who guard their turf. The badminton guys who don’t want to share their game or the tennis guys who routinely fight over petty issues. That’s stupid. What sports can possibly teach you – discipline, the need to listen to your body, that every point doesn’t matter, that brains are extremely important, that immediate reactions can be honed… whatever… But definitely don’t ever be selfish. I firmly believe that performance sports are dominated by really selfish people. It’s possibly an important part of the mental construct. I hate it and I hope Jispa doesn’t learn from it.