I went down to visit my sister this weekend for Eid, and one of the days while I was there, I was tasked with going to my nephew’s sports day. “Sports Day” is a triggering phrase for me, not unlike the spasm that comes when someone whispers “Vietnam” into an elder veteran’s ear before lighting a firecracker under their wheelchair. It ties as the worst day of the school year, the other being that awful day my teachers would pass around our marked exams so that we might compare notes on exactly how dismally I had performed in algebra.
At my school we had lots of sporting facilities but very few actual sportsmen. This did not stop them from forcing everyone to play competitive group activities at least twice a week – which is an exercise in terrorism. There was hockey, in which I would pretend my stick was a sabre; football, in which I would hide behind a tree; tennis, which was like dodgeball with higher velocity; and even swimming, which was straight up body shaming. (I was actually pretty OK at swimming, through that was mainly because at that age anything with that much fat can float easily).
The really stressful events, the ones that sports day revolved around, were the track events. Hurdles, jumps, sprints, 100-metre races, 400-metre races, etc. Hell, essentially. One sports day, I remember being involuntarily signed up for the long-distance run. It didn’t occur to anyone that I should probably have trained for months for this 14-kilometre race. So there, among the screaming parents and shouting students, we all lined up under the colorful banners and stringers. A man dressed in white shot an air pistol and a herd began running in circles around the field before leaving the school premises to continue the race. I made it 400 feet and collapsed – dry, heaving at the school gate. I was so conspicuously the last runner (and I use the term loosely) that the teachers were walking beside me for ages, shouting at me with megaphones telling me to “Buck up!” I still get a shiver when I hear that. “Buck Up” is my Vietnam. Eventually I ignored my teacher, stopped on the main road, and hired a rickshaw to take me to the other school gate so I could at least salvage some dignity. I was still the last one to arrive by a good ten minutes, but #noregrets.
And so it was with a certain amount of, let’s say, baggage that I went to this Sports Day for my nephew. It was held in a small track and the morning sun was punishing, so I joined the other parents and nannies in the sliver of shade under a tree on the bleachers. I had been told to look out for the year 4 race at 9:30 a.m. So there I sat, dressed entirely in black, judging everyone behind my glasses. I’d never been on the other side of school events, the parents’ side. It was a new and dangerous world. Parents were screaming instructions at their kids (“Timmy use rope! NO, NOT THE BAG, THE ROPE!” Or “Come one Alisha! Faster honey, FASTER!”) from a distance. The kids seemed fairly embarrassed by this sudden attention to their movements – even the ones that were flying through.
Looking at the track, I knew that I would die of dehydration ages before I could finish any of those races. To ask little eight-year-olds to run around a track four, sometimes five, times seemed an absurd, even cruel thing to do. But they did, and most of them did it well. Of course there was always that one fat kid at the back, miles behind the rest of the runners, half-walking half-jogging to the finish line, his pendulous bosom swinging with every horrified gasping breath as parents, teachers and students turned their full attention to him to shout words of encouragement. I know that kid as well as I know myself. I could almost hear him praying that the ordeal be over, or that everyone just look away already! But they didn’t. Like the Eye of Sauron they stared until that fat little boy rolled across the finish line and collapsed on the grass.
The parents were all in sports gear themselves, as if athleticism were sartorial. Turns out that the parents section is like its own school yard. Whose kid is winning? Whose kid is fastest? Whose kid is doing better (or better yet, worse) than last year? How far was their stride, their jump, their kick?
“Well James is a natural, of course,” said one thin white woman with coiffed hair to another who looked like she had been hit by a K-Mart truck. “His grandfather has an Olympic medal, you know?” She looked doe-eyed at James, who had chosen that moment to start picking his nose. “Yes,” said K-Mart. “It shows.”
I was so smug with being anti-sports that it took me a while to remember that I, too, was there to see a race. It should have been on already, in fact. I went around, asked some teachers and they said that and the race had already happened. My sister would kill me if I didn’t get any pictures of him crossing the finish line, so I tracked him down in the noisy, nose picking crowd of children baking in the afternoon sun.
“There you are!” I said. “I’m so sorry I missed your race! So, so sorry! C’mon, let’s get you on the field, I need to fake some shots of you running and I promise I’ll buy you a giant ice cream later.”
“But I didn’t run,” he told me.
“Oh that doesn’t – wait, what?”
“I didn’t run.”
“How come?”
“I didn’t sign up. I was a reserve on the 400-metre” He turned his adorable puppy eyes down, and I realised he was clearly worried about confessing that he didn’t want to run on sports day and hadn’t signed up for anything. He probably thought he had done something wrong.
“Oh God,” I said, fighting my tears back and enveloping him in a hug. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said. I love you so much!”
And so I bought him an ice cream and we watched the parents shout at kids sweating in the sun, comfortable in the knowledge that there is no point in running a race if you’ve already won the day.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com
At my school we had lots of sporting facilities but very few actual sportsmen. This did not stop them from forcing everyone to play competitive group activities at least twice a week – which is an exercise in terrorism. There was hockey, in which I would pretend my stick was a sabre; football, in which I would hide behind a tree; tennis, which was like dodgeball with higher velocity; and even swimming, which was straight up body shaming. (I was actually pretty OK at swimming, through that was mainly because at that age anything with that much fat can float easily).
The really stressful events, the ones that sports day revolved around, were the track events. Hurdles, jumps, sprints, 100-metre races, 400-metre races, etc. Hell, essentially. One sports day, I remember being involuntarily signed up for the long-distance run. It didn’t occur to anyone that I should probably have trained for months for this 14-kilometre race. So there, among the screaming parents and shouting students, we all lined up under the colorful banners and stringers. A man dressed in white shot an air pistol and a herd began running in circles around the field before leaving the school premises to continue the race. I made it 400 feet and collapsed – dry, heaving at the school gate. I was so conspicuously the last runner (and I use the term loosely) that the teachers were walking beside me for ages, shouting at me with megaphones telling me to “Buck up!” I still get a shiver when I hear that. “Buck Up” is my Vietnam. Eventually I ignored my teacher, stopped on the main road, and hired a rickshaw to take me to the other school gate so I could at least salvage some dignity. I was still the last one to arrive by a good ten minutes, but #noregrets.
And so it was with a certain amount of, let’s say, baggage that I went to this Sports Day for my nephew. It was held in a small track and the morning sun was punishing, so I joined the other parents and nannies in the sliver of shade under a tree on the bleachers. I had been told to look out for the year 4 race at 9:30 a.m. So there I sat, dressed entirely in black, judging everyone behind my glasses. I’d never been on the other side of school events, the parents’ side. It was a new and dangerous world. Parents were screaming instructions at their kids (“Timmy use rope! NO, NOT THE BAG, THE ROPE!” Or “Come one Alisha! Faster honey, FASTER!”) from a distance. The kids seemed fairly embarrassed by this sudden attention to their movements – even the ones that were flying through.
The parents were all in sports gear themselves, as if athleticism were sartorial. Turns out that the parents section is like its own school yard
Looking at the track, I knew that I would die of dehydration ages before I could finish any of those races. To ask little eight-year-olds to run around a track four, sometimes five, times seemed an absurd, even cruel thing to do. But they did, and most of them did it well. Of course there was always that one fat kid at the back, miles behind the rest of the runners, half-walking half-jogging to the finish line, his pendulous bosom swinging with every horrified gasping breath as parents, teachers and students turned their full attention to him to shout words of encouragement. I know that kid as well as I know myself. I could almost hear him praying that the ordeal be over, or that everyone just look away already! But they didn’t. Like the Eye of Sauron they stared until that fat little boy rolled across the finish line and collapsed on the grass.
The parents were all in sports gear themselves, as if athleticism were sartorial. Turns out that the parents section is like its own school yard. Whose kid is winning? Whose kid is fastest? Whose kid is doing better (or better yet, worse) than last year? How far was their stride, their jump, their kick?
“Well James is a natural, of course,” said one thin white woman with coiffed hair to another who looked like she had been hit by a K-Mart truck. “His grandfather has an Olympic medal, you know?” She looked doe-eyed at James, who had chosen that moment to start picking his nose. “Yes,” said K-Mart. “It shows.”
I was so smug with being anti-sports that it took me a while to remember that I, too, was there to see a race. It should have been on already, in fact. I went around, asked some teachers and they said that and the race had already happened. My sister would kill me if I didn’t get any pictures of him crossing the finish line, so I tracked him down in the noisy, nose picking crowd of children baking in the afternoon sun.
“There you are!” I said. “I’m so sorry I missed your race! So, so sorry! C’mon, let’s get you on the field, I need to fake some shots of you running and I promise I’ll buy you a giant ice cream later.”
“But I didn’t run,” he told me.
“Oh that doesn’t – wait, what?”
“I didn’t run.”
“How come?”
“I didn’t sign up. I was a reserve on the 400-metre” He turned his adorable puppy eyes down, and I realised he was clearly worried about confessing that he didn’t want to run on sports day and hadn’t signed up for anything. He probably thought he had done something wrong.
“Oh God,” I said, fighting my tears back and enveloping him in a hug. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said. I love you so much!”
And so I bought him an ice cream and we watched the parents shout at kids sweating in the sun, comfortable in the knowledge that there is no point in running a race if you’ve already won the day.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com