By Ananya S Guha
I remember in School during the all important Sports Day after each event, especially the 100, 200 and 400 metres race, following the grandiose announcement of the winners there was also a tepid and lukewarm mention: “Also Ran…” Poor souls, what blighted creatures they were, my infantile imagination spoke. They were simply lost in the glory of the winners, who had smug looks on their visages. And the of course the thunderous clapping, the elbowing and jostling to have a glimpse of the winners who looked as if they were about to wear a crown.
In stark contrast, the ‘Also Ran(s)’ looked like morons, heads down, shoulders drooping- in today’s jargon: the body language was abysmally poor.
I happened to be ‘An Also Ran’ all the time I took part in these events. Part of me was ‘Also’ and part not ‘Ran’ but ‘Run’. Opprobrium covered me from head to foot. The winners I thought were pompous little idiots brandishing their trophies with aplomb and ostentation. But worse was to come, I was even worse in wielding a hock stick or chasing a football. I recollected Bernard Shaw’s acerbic wit – eleven pairs of hairy legs, chasing a bag of wind! I would quote this with effrontery to drown the sorrows, to mitigate the rankling pain, to subsume the obstreperous chanting of the crowds within my silence, drowning my sorrows with my indefatigable wit.
Today, I adopt a more stoic and philosophical world view: “If there were no also rans, then who would Win?”