All the world's a Stage.. and the Oscar goes to Lance

On a rainy afternoon almost 12 years ago, during one of those days, where u 'shower' in the rain (certainly it was neither out of choice nor was I a tourist.. but that's for another day), when the day just doesn't seem to end.... there was this small piece of write up in some old newspaper I happen to chance upon  about some guy called Lance Armstrong... There are these things / events / people who just make u forget whatever happens around u and just engross you. That piece of article was one such thing. It made me wonder what on earth could motivate a guy to come on top of such a seemingly in surmountable challenge, more so even after fighting cancer. I kept thinking about it for a while, so much so I wondered whether this was possible. But more interestingly I lost track of the drenching downpour. The counting of some arbitrary numbers sounded too distant to notice and the body was just responding like a robot with some weird action which not so long ago used to be push ups. My mind was still wandering about this guy and that article Until......  a huge 'Thud' brought me back to mother earth.. :).. Lance, tour, cancer, and almost everything suddenly 'Vanished' from my memory and that hockey stick hovering around the "Thudded" area behind me, did have a huge role to play in it. Days passed, things changed around me, (people called it evolving, I prefer to keep it less complicated), but that guy's name and the tour kept me intrigued.

 I had just lost my grandmother to cancer that year and it was just a sheer co-incidence that the Tour happened around the same time I had my grandmother's anniversary in July.  And I saw this guy as 'The one who killed-that-demon-who-killed-my grandmother'. Came the next July, this year again by sheer coincidence I happened to read about some 'stage' of tour in which this Guy 'Lance Armstrong' came back from behind and blah blah blah.... And he wins the tour  !!!!!. Yet again the same guy, NOW I was interested. Having been a sport fan and follower all my life, I could see this as no mere coincidence. So there starts my first memory of Lance Armstrong, "The Guy riding the bike with a Yellow Jersey". Internet was great luxury, I could ill afford and amidst all those 'Hovering Hockeys' and 'Showers' and what not, I somehow was looking forward to the next July to know more about this guy through newspaper. Came July, now I was following stage by stage.. readin about pelletons, about those Alps, pyrenees.. and was mesmerised by that guy's grit.  To my dismay he won again. Man !!! Is he the next big thing in sport ? I wondered. I saw no reason why he couldn't qualify to be the greatest. He took a special place in the list of heroes my mind had made. 

And then after a few years, someone suggested this book called 'It's not about the Bike'. I was floored wen I read. Now in addition to learning about how he 'went About' scheming his 'exploits' I also came to know of Lance's 'enemies'.... The drug inspectors and critics and all those who questioned his comeback. For me he was a superhero, whose 'enemies' were mine too. So much was my liking for this guy that any question on his 'preparation' for the tour was preposterous. He was more than an inspiration. I started speaking about him to my friends, relatives. When a friend of mine was diagnosed of a very nascent form of cancer, Lance was the first thought that came to me and I presented him with the book, feeling good within that I have introduced my hero to my friend. When my cousin asked for a good book to start his reading habits, knowing the sports lover he too is I quickly bought him a copy of the book. I was getting enamoured by this Guy, the way he 'trained' and more importantly his desire to fight till he drops dead.

But while on one front where he managed to sell himself to people like me with his books and well circulated PR network, hopping from one race to other and moderately successful triathlon exploits, lance managed to stay in News both for right and Wrong reasons. The constant drug charges and to my slight surprise his silent defiance against them somewhat annoyed me. I really wanted him to just shut these critics up, somehow. That's the least I expected my hero, who fought (atleast I thought so) no holds barred, to do, just to prove whatever he wrote in that book was just the bloody truth. Nothing more Nothing less.

And that's where Lance failed me. Not only me, but a million others like me and millions more who like my cousin who got to know of him from hear say. To call a spade a spade means unadulterated guts and that's the least I expected from my 'Champion'. But he continued to hide behind legal loopholes.U never really like a person who uses legalese to justify his actions. "U haven't caught me doing" didn't seemed convincing enough explanation but I was still hopeful.

But just then he dropped that dreaded bomb when he said he wouldn't contest the cases in court. All of a sudden I felt cheated, stupid and what not. Once again words failed to do justice to my emotions. But this time for wrong reasons. Your worst nightmare is not your fear of known or unknown demons, But the ones when your best friends turn into your bitter foes, when your idols turn into dreaded monsters. Lance now was one of them.

Was it Lance's mistake to have 'allegedly'(S*** this legalese) doped . Or was it mine to have gone head over heals to believe he didn't. I really don't know, but Lance was no Rajinikant and I should have known.

Sometimes in the quest for everything, you end up losing it all. I am really not F*** (Strictly no legalese) bothered even if Lance lost his family jewels in the bargain for his exploits, but he had no rights absolutely whatsoever to take millions of people like me for a ride with his white lies about being 'Mr Clean'. All said and done, come July, I shall think once again of The tour, Lance, my granny and Cancer in quite the same breath I have till now but just that its not only Cancer I hate anymore.