THE OTHER TEAM

It's funny how we link our happiness to petty tournaments between nations. We start associating with such things to runaway from the reality. We cheer for our nation like mad, crazy people. We put in our heart and devotion into something we are not even a part of. Well sort of maybe. Only last night I was reading an article about Kazi Nazrul Islam, a Bengali poet and revolutionist, that quoted what he once said in a speech  "Just because I was born in this country and society, I do not consider myself to be solely a subject of this nation and my community. I belong to every country and everyone. The caste, society, country or religion within which I was born was determined by blind luck. It's only because I managed to rise above these that I could become a poet."  
And I connected with his words. I literally felt as if my thoughts have found words , the words that he had once spoken. Then today India vs Pakistan match happened. I haven't even been following the matches this time but oh man! did it break my heart when my mother told the news. On any other day I would have squealed wither utter disappointment but this time it hit me hard , somewhere deep, somewhere important. No not my heart but the layers of myelin sheath in my brain which had learnt to think after constant repetition that I'm a free soul. I have no limits and can fly as high as I wish with my wings. I was not to be restricted by the geographical limits. And now this same myelin sheath doubts me. Maybe I'm not that sceptical, maybe my beliefs are fugitive. Have I been caught in the trap set by those nation bearers? Or am I too tired of waiting to be accepted for what I believe in and have given in to these societal norms?
Well I think that we all try too hard to find our identities, to be different that we stop being us. For most part of my life I've loved cricket, loved the tension, loved the excitement and mostly loved the fact that we were mostly winning, I always thought we'd defeat them no matter what and today the reality that we couldn't was hard thing to accept. Totally blinded by the illusions , I didn't experience the feeling of loss until today. And now its taking me back to my roots, my childhood which wasn't shaped by people and opinions that made me hostile of my own surroundings in my later years. Yes I'll still stick to the fact that I'm a free bird with no boundaries.
But maybe deep down I'm also the winter bird that runs to the backyard when the natural resources are at their scariest , in my case the 'other team'. We humans are funny in such a weird way, we run our entire lives from the usual, orchestrate our dreams and then crumble when reality hits us.