Girls and sports don’t go together,’ — I have been hearing this ever since I got interested in sports. These comments usually come from boys and I feel like tearing their heads apart for making such stupid comments. I was addicted to sports from my childhood. May be it was the environment where I was brought up. We had a large family and everyone loved to watch games. Most of the time, we watched football. I remember choosing footballs teams at random, chanting their name and urging the players to somehow get the ball to the goal post. ‘Mine’s the one in red’, I would say. It was years later that I identified the players and the country they came from.
My sister, brother and I, the three of us would insist on staying up late to watch a particular game with dad. We never cared about being late to school the next morning. The next day, we would keep on analyzing the game, and at times to impress others, even say tidbits we’d overheard from seniors the other night.
There have been occasions when I have unknowingly entered the lion’s den by making comments against the belief of senior sports-crazy girls. That was during my early teens. But, even now my sports comments are sometimes taken lightly and at times people (especially males) crosscheck me. Before, such comments hurt me but recently, I have managed to brush their comments aside, accusing them of being chauvinistic. Meanwhile, an incident the other day made me ponder if these guys were right all along. It was a reunion party and we were catching on all the gossip. One thing led to the other and soon we were talking about the upcoming world cup. We were talking about the world cup history, the probable winner, and the golden boot contender. Suddenly an old friend, who was completely indifferent to sports, commented that she was also waiting for the whistle to blow.
Stunned by the sudden change in her attitude towards sports, everyone insisted her to spill the beans. She gave a long explanation that took an entire evening; here’s the gist of what she said. It was not football as a game that aroused her interest but the players. Opposites attract and when the opposition happened to be such good-looking athletes, the attraction grew ten folds. The player with their great physique, who on any day can give models a run for their money, got her hooked to sports. Initially, it was the footballers she watched but soon she became another football fan. Missed chances, opportunities created, penalties lost interested her more than suspense movie. The well-toned bodies clad in colorful jersey and the events unfolding in the ground developed in her an obsession for sports.
The ease with which she shared her obsession to sports changed my opinions as well. Now those typical male remarks from the boys don’t bother me much. In fact, I can make light of the matter and say, “Yes, girls have more fun watching games than you boys do.”
– Pratichya Dulal
