Victory Sports Club was nothing less than Rial Madrid. What if we had no Cristiano Ronaldo? We had Ravanan . Our team was a star studded entity - one of the two football clubs our village had those days. The other was Nehru Sports Club, our arch rival.
Most of our friends tie their knickers to the waist because the knickers did not have buttons. Buttons fall as the cloth gets old. They could afford to only old cloths. Still their spirit could never be dampened. They were as cheered up as any one of us. Guys make a knot with the two sides of the front part of the knickers to make it tight around the waist. This exercise, like we do with our dhothi, had to be repeated several times. In fact, keeping the knickers at the right place was really a tough task for most of them.
Even with these uncooperative knickers, we all celebrated our childhood. No worry about first rank in the class. No worry about learning English and flaunt the fluency of our English in front of the visiting aunties and uncles. We found no qualms in speaking to them in our own mother tongue.
No one pushed us to study. Perhaps lack of push was the reason, many of our cronies could not make to the higher strata of the society. Anyway, I don’t think anyone of us regret about it. Being happy in life is important; no matter how much is the bank balance
Victory sports club was founded by our seniors. They had a football. They used to play football at our LP school play ground. The Governmant Lower Primary school and an Ayurveda clinic were the two public institutions we had in Olavaipe. Now, in 2009 too, the situation is no different.
Those days, every one of us had our primary education from this LP school. The nearby Aurvada clinic did have many patents that time. Now, like the LP school, this clinic too is a crow scare in this village. The students of the yesteryears of this LP school take extra pain to send their children to English medium schools far away from Olavaipe.
Victory sports had a B team too, consisted mostly of the younger brothers of the senior team. Ramachandran aka Ravanan was our star striker. He dribbles with the ball with dexterity. To our standard, he was just like Maradona. I too was a striker! Our team had a conspicuous difference from the senior team. We could not afford to a football in the beginning. Most of the time, we played with a round thing made of rag. We then graduated to rubber ball of late.
For a long period, we played football without a football. Even with the rubber ball, we never thought we played anything less than a European League. To buy a rubber ball, we had to collect paltry sums from every guy and then go to Poochakkal. Rubber ball often gets burst. This was a great cause for concern for us as, we never had any source of income. The concept of pocket money was not existent those days. We had never handled any big money in the denominations of fives and tens.
Our play ground was the premises of our houses or any other vacant lands. Playing around the coconut and mango trees on the ground was fun. We enjoyed it. We organized matches with the Nehru Sports Club many times. These matches used to raise the temperature like in an India Pak cricket match. Prestige was at stake. We could never afford to loose to our arch rival. Still we had to concede many a match, though our captain Ravanan presented several glorious occasions to us too. Though the matches produce high voltage competition, we never quarreled each other.
Perhaps our upbringing has helped us a lot. We never learnt to hate or look down upon others. With a great sense of pride let me say one more thing. Despite the strong undercurrent of caste system that was (is) prevalent in the villages of Keralam, we were above all that, well, to a great extent. We lived together, shared our happiness irrespective of our caste lineages. No barriers kept us apart. Sadly the sectarian mindset will disappear from our society only when the much awaited big deluge occurs.
Most of our friends tie their knickers to the waist because the knickers did not have buttons. Buttons fall as the cloth gets old. They could afford to only old cloths. Still their spirit could never be dampened. They were as cheered up as any one of us. Guys make a knot with the two sides of the front part of the knickers to make it tight around the waist. This exercise, like we do with our dhothi, had to be repeated several times. In fact, keeping the knickers at the right place was really a tough task for most of them.
Even with these uncooperative knickers, we all celebrated our childhood. No worry about first rank in the class. No worry about learning English and flaunt the fluency of our English in front of the visiting aunties and uncles. We found no qualms in speaking to them in our own mother tongue.
No one pushed us to study. Perhaps lack of push was the reason, many of our cronies could not make to the higher strata of the society. Anyway, I don’t think anyone of us regret about it. Being happy in life is important; no matter how much is the bank balance
Victory sports club was founded by our seniors. They had a football. They used to play football at our LP school play ground. The Governmant Lower Primary school and an Ayurveda clinic were the two public institutions we had in Olavaipe. Now, in 2009 too, the situation is no different.
Those days, every one of us had our primary education from this LP school. The nearby Aurvada clinic did have many patents that time. Now, like the LP school, this clinic too is a crow scare in this village. The students of the yesteryears of this LP school take extra pain to send their children to English medium schools far away from Olavaipe.
Victory sports had a B team too, consisted mostly of the younger brothers of the senior team. Ramachandran aka Ravanan was our star striker. He dribbles with the ball with dexterity. To our standard, he was just like Maradona. I too was a striker! Our team had a conspicuous difference from the senior team. We could not afford to a football in the beginning. Most of the time, we played with a round thing made of rag. We then graduated to rubber ball of late.
For a long period, we played football without a football. Even with the rubber ball, we never thought we played anything less than a European League. To buy a rubber ball, we had to collect paltry sums from every guy and then go to Poochakkal. Rubber ball often gets burst. This was a great cause for concern for us as, we never had any source of income. The concept of pocket money was not existent those days. We had never handled any big money in the denominations of fives and tens.
Our play ground was the premises of our houses or any other vacant lands. Playing around the coconut and mango trees on the ground was fun. We enjoyed it. We organized matches with the Nehru Sports Club many times. These matches used to raise the temperature like in an India Pak cricket match. Prestige was at stake. We could never afford to loose to our arch rival. Still we had to concede many a match, though our captain Ravanan presented several glorious occasions to us too. Though the matches produce high voltage competition, we never quarreled each other.
Perhaps our upbringing has helped us a lot. We never learnt to hate or look down upon others. With a great sense of pride let me say one more thing. Despite the strong undercurrent of caste system that was (is) prevalent in the villages of Keralam, we were above all that, well, to a great extent. We lived together, shared our happiness irrespective of our caste lineages. No barriers kept us apart. Sadly the sectarian mindset will disappear from our society only when the much awaited big deluge occurs.
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