I am so tired now, and so sleepy. But I cannot rest for my secret diary will now be part of Scottish history. Hence I will have to maintain it every day. Yes, I hadn’t slept well after the Great Day, plagued by dreams as I was. In one, I am knighted right on centre court by Her Majesty the Queen of England. Wearing a kilt I knelt in front of her, she tapped me on the shoulders with a tennis racquet pronouncing ‘Arise, Sir Andrew’. The other dream was more bizarre. I am Sir Andy Murray, the King of Scotland during whose reign the elusive Loch Ness monster was sighted, caught and kept at the Edinburgh Zoo. A great day for Scotland’s people and king!
I guess I’d have to mention the Wimbledon triumph. I cherished the moment my coach Ivan Lendl finally smiled, the first time in several years. You may know that, having never won the Wimbledon trophy, he hated the place and had also developed a grass allergy which has now disappeared. That was some achievement. When my hired tuxedo and tails were delivered to me on the eve of the Wimbledon ball, the clothier told me he had planned not to entertain any future orders from me because of my past record in the finals. But today, he apologised on his knees.
There’s a bit of problem because I do not remember anything about the last 30 minutes of the game. The team psychiatrist explained that this was quite natural. Clearly a case of selective amnesia because of the nightmarish experience of the ‘Djoker’ returning everything I sent back across the net. He was quite capable of demonic retaliations, recovering from matchpoint in the third set, making up for the lost two sets and snatching a victory. Thank heavens, that did not happen. The psychiatrist assured me that my old nightmares which featured the Djoker, Rafa and Federer would not recur. In fact, my opponents could now be afflicted with these nightmares.
Yes, congratulatory messages have poured in from all over the world. I was intrigued by one such message from an Indian filmmaker offering an obscene amount to me to star in his movie. No, it had very little tennis in it. The bloke explained he was moved by the tennis telecast which showed my mother intensely watching the final, praying, frowning and jubilant after my victory. He also learnt that my first coach was my mother. Putting all the masala together, he wanted to make a film which stressed that more than a big serve, ground strokes, an unbeatable backhand and so on, it was mother’s love which really mattered. He explained in detail the end of the film which showed Djokovic wondering how he could have lost the match when he had all the strokes. Looking him straight in the eye, I reply ‘Mere paas Mummy hain’. I’ll have to work on the accent though.
The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com
