Aspiration, Ambition and Asthma

As far as I can remember, I always had Asthma.

What is Asthma? In layperson's term, it means difficulty in breathing caused by some shit stuck in your passageway (no, not that Indiana Jones one, you know, the boulder running down the conveniently dug semi-tunnel; and no, we are talking about the goddam biological tubes inside you from your nose all the way down your ass).

The shit is usually phlegm...or mucus....or the thing you sneeze out into your handkerchief and the ones you secretly scrutinise to make sure it is not red (sometimes it is, unless you are colour blind like me...eh gad, this is a site to be read with parental guidance).

Did I get it from my parents? Sure I did. But who caused it? Me.

Apparently my mother was hale and healthy (what is hale, by the way? Did someone created that word to rhyme with pale, whale or Christian Bale?). When I was born, I immediately triggered the Asthmatic button in my beloved mother's biological circuitry board. She started wheezing big. Little baby Rakesh wheezing little. We were two person concerto.

Poor dad. First year into his marriage, suddenly he got two Asthmatic patients in his hand. No wonder he went back to religion.

Asthma has proven to be a bane and boon. No, not Bane as in Batman's bad guy or Boon....err....isn't that the guy in early US who killed the shit out of raccoon and wore 'em as hat?

Anyway, boon is this: I took it easy. I never went outdoor much, not much of games or sports or fun and laughter. Hah, who wants that. I sat indoors and read and read and read and watched TV (where and when permissible) and read and read.

Bane is not much. I wanted to goddam go out and playyyy!!!! Arrrggghhhh.....Like kids that time and even now, I wanted to play football (soccer, soccer you Americans). Since I can't run from one end of the field to the other (it always look nearer on TV but why they insist on expanding it 1000 times in real life?) means... after 25 metres, my lung gets happy and starts to play the violin, or cello depending its mood. And I am on the ground. Whining ala Beethoven.

Later, those who were understanding and were seriously understanding my gut-wrenching instinct that I make a great striker while knowing well that Mackerel will never make a water fall hopping upwards ala salmon, relegated me to become a defender (our lingo, we simply call this poor schmucks 'back'). “Stay near the goalie (goalkeeper), back,” they would say, “and just kick the ball out from whoever is coming. Err...which means our opponent, get it?”

Or, “hey you....what's your name...back...back.....” I turn back and there goes the ball over me into the goal post.

I get it, you funsucker.

There goes my football career. Both of my brothers had some sort of success representing school, and later forming, with neighbouring friends, their own football team (named after the housing estate in Kluang or something), but I was out, voluntarily because I know my weakness (I was busy discussing Tamil literature my my newfound brother Chitambaram)

So, it is not beause they didn't want me. But I knew that I am going to screw the team up with my biological deficiency. They understood. I was glad. They kept winning. Crikey, I was proud of them.

But I tell you what! The blood inherited from one Shankaran Nair (that is my father's father and there are, apart from us brothers, cousins like Navin [dad's third elder sister's son], Devanan [dad's sister's son, late, I have written about this awesome bloke and his adventures, and ….okay no more parenthesis and Shubash, my younger brother] were all there. It was supposed to be a family business.

What actually made this team awesome was....as the parentheshit...okay I know you don't give a crap...is Shubash, our younger brother, and Anan (the awesome adventurous bloke I wrote about way before)...is that both of them are goddam lefties.

In retrospetive mode now, since I have indulged in flue/cough remedy: I didn't know then that I would be surrounded by these goddam lefties. My younger brother, Shubash is a leftie, my favourite late cousin Anan is a leftie, and....and....tadaaa.....my wife turned out to be a leftie!.

And what need to be told is about my immediate brother, Balan. He is awesome. Striker, he is like a cobra. Right wing? Sure, he flies like eagle. Left wing? Oh heck, he can be communist (do your poitical maths)....and when he strikes....he strikes like Thunderball........(queue soundtrack from the James Bond flick, by Tom Jones, called...oh hell...Thunderball.....google it blokes and gals).

Did I play a part?

Hah! They should thank me for that. If not, they would not have won most of the friendly games with various teams in the district and out. And this was the year end school holiday. The next school season started and they had to hang up their boots momentarily. Seriously, if they had me, there would have been a requirement made in friendly games to have, not only water, painkilling spray or stretcher nearby, but also a Ventolin Inhaler.

They were winning because I was not there.

I didn't know the terrible consequnces of Asthma till at one time, when our beloved neighbour, and I hate to point out the race thing because I want to highlight that as Malaysians we are goddam peacefully living with each other no matter what colour creed, whateverfucknots.

She is a beautiful Malay lady, wife to my dad's colleague, their house neighbouring ours (estate quarters, by the way). On that fateful day, her Asthma kicked out the worst possible predicament, and at that time, dad had a car that was borrowed from one of our relatives.

He took both husbad and wife in...and mind you, the plantation we lived in was about, I believe, 40 kilometres away from the main hospital. And not even halfway, she breathed her last.

Let us not even imagine how her husband felt.

It was a tragedy that we mere mortals can not help, let alone assist. My dad did all he could. Her husband spend his married life which is like his entire life to make her a wonderful partner. All ended....there.

Dad was on in his mid-thirties. It was too much for him.

I think the incident still haunts him.

Oh crap....I forgot the point of what I wanted to write. Dad wanted to become a great footballer, and he is a great goalkeeper. I know, I still feel the pain when he kicked the goddam ball and got me catching it only to have my palm in fire...inferno.

I saw him in a friendly game within some plantation organisation where he jumped like, 9 feets, to catch the ball, roll over the ground, holding the ball like a little infant.

I can never be like that. My brothers are over that, they got kids to worry about. But then....the juniors.....

Blog posts supposed to have points so that it is remembered. Those who read this, don't worry. The point: Life is short, unless you are acting as Ewoks in George Lucas Movie

Life is shit: Because you have to leave the unwanted behind.

Life is awesome: Because there's Rajini DVD my son keep insisting on watching every goddam night.

Life is life: When it is over.

Over and out. Aijamalakkadigiri.