Bye, Schumi; will miss you ...

I do not exactly remember the first race I watched of Michael Schumacher’s. But I distinctly remember the first “serious” Formula 1 talk I had at home. It was the 1^st of May in 1994, the day the world lost Ayrton Senna in a fatal crash at the San Marino Grand Prix while driving for Williams. It was perhaps the most devastating incident in Formula 1 fans’ life as we lost the most beloved racer of all times but that was also the time when the ascent of Michael Schumacher had already begun. Alain Prost completed the triad with these two as the most famous drivers in F1.  

Watching Michael Schumacher drive for the last time in the history of Formula 1 today made me go through a roller-coaster of emotions. Today was not the day of Schumi’s final retirement alone but also brakes being put on one of the most beautiful chapters of my life. I have spent many evenings enjoying F1 races with family and friends, with the sole aim of watching Schumi race! For me F1 was Schumi and visa-versa! If F1 became my most favourite sport, the credit goes to Schumi!

Schumi’s Ferrari Red was my colour too! The fact that red was always the most attractive colour for me perhaps played its part partially in attaching me to the most vibrant and energetic colour and the F1 team of the world! For me, Red denoted Life and immense life Schumi infused on tracks!   

Ask a Formula 1 fan and he/she will tell you that F1 is not merely a sport; it is meditation. Yes, meditation! The roar of those high power sophisticated engines in unison put you in a trance! Mesmerized, you watch those cars fly by! In fact many a times watching F1 races I have enjoyed the most peaceful of my sleeps! Well, getting up soon enough to check for the current grid positions!

Watching a F1 race is like watching high tides crash onto your beach! The sound of the sea is akin to the thrilling sensation felt at hearing a racing car roar by! Both make you experience life’s calmest moments! Don’t believe it? Try sitting on a beach and putting on the TV on a Race-Day!

In 2006 when Michael Schumacher announced his retirement, I felt like I had lost a crucial part of my being. F1 without Schumi was simply not for me. My most favourite sport suddenly seemed charmless. And gradually I found myself missing out on many of the races – a rarity in Schumi-days! The F1 Diary which I kept also lost importance for me; I would fill it up only occasionally, updating the records reluctantly. I was a Reluctant F1 fan, now!

Came 2010 and Michael Schumacher started his second innings as a race driver! This time with Mercedes and his colour changed to white. And along with he brought one of his most ardent admirers – that’s me! – back on track! Of course, like Schumi himself, I too believed in his capabilities to become a champion again but unfortunately that did not happen. Though the second phase of his career did not see him having even a single podium finish, but his presence on the track made all the races worth watching!

I cannot thank God enough for giving me the opportunity to watch my Hero live in the 2012 Indian Grand Prix! Seeing him wave to race enthusiasts – including me! - while taking a lap around the track in a decorated open trailer along with all other drivers, I couldn’t believe my eyes! I was seeing my most favourite sport person in flesh and blood! Schumi looked as handsome as on television and in magazines! The radiance of his face and the brilliance of his brain all came through just the way he is! It was pure ecstasy! Hypnotized I was looking at him! It was Dream come true! Being at the same place where Schumi was made me tizzy! I was breathing the same air which he was! I couldn’t simply believe my own luck! I was watching The Great Michael Schumacher live! Wow!

Everything about Formula 1 was unfolding in front of my eyes like a breath-taking sequence! Everything that I had read and watched, I was experiencing in person! The excitement, the preparation, the involvement, the ceremonies, the grandstanding, the pit-stopping, the grid positions, the warm-up laps, the start-finish line, the 5 illuminating lights, the pole positions, the team crews, the grid girls, the television crews, the race cars, the safety car, the tyres, the tyre-warmers, the chequered flag, the yellow flag, the blue flag, the pit-boards, the marshals, the cranes, the screens, the laps, the circuit, the track, the sectors, the grand stand, the paddock, the pit-stop, the chicanes, the stadium itself, everything what I had ever known about F1 was all there laid out in front of me! I was a part of this amazing event on the earth! And I couldn't believe it! I was living one of the most beautiful experiences of my life! And I was thanking God for the blessings!    

And there was Michael Schumacher! And I was watching Schumi’s last venture into the Indian Grand Prix live! As the laps were reducing, my feeling of loss was increasing. I knew that soon the race would be over and I would never ever see Schumi race again – as if I had watched him live all my life!

Drivers had gone inside; crews had thinned; volunteers had also all gone; crowd had also almost disappeared but I waited for the place around to become quiet. F1 technicians had started to dismantle things around; the 5 illuminating lights were the first to be lowered. I was trying to absorb as much as possible. The Mercedes crew members were busy packing their things, leaving Schumi’s name plank at the top of his pit section to be removed last. For the team, they had already said good-bye to the beautiful Buddh International Circuit in India!

The most lasting memory of my Indian GP is of looking at Schumi’s pit for one last time before walking out of the grandstand. I wanted to take his memory within me.

Seeing Schumi race for the last time today kept bringing back beautiful memories from my life, realizing simultaneously with a heavy heart and teary eyes that this blessed moment will never ever come in my life again. All throughout the Brazilian Grand Prix today, my eyes kept trying to spot Schumi; I was almost oblivious to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel’s record matching performance at Interlagos of becoming the third driver – and the youngest - in the history of F1 to win three Championships in a row! Congrats, Sebastian; and sorry.

F1 is an amazing sport; one of the most fantastic experiences in a human’s life! Nevertheless, I do not know if I will ever enjoy it the way I did while watching Michael Schumacher race. I know for sure that I will not see Schumi come for a third stint – and he should not – and that is the reason I am so sad today :(  

Schumi, Thanks for all those amazing F1 moments and memories; I will miss you …         

Fan-tastic!

Below illustrated is the ‘anatomy of an admirer’.

Sounds like a biology class! At least it is not a lesson in “postmortem” as the admirer is still alive! …

Before you start wondering, I would like to narrate a recent incident. I was in Bhopal having dinner at the Jehan Numa Palace’s famed restaurant “Under The Mango Tree” when I saw Jaya Bachchan walk in with a few friends & relatives. Obviously all heads turned in her direction including mine but there was no pandemonium. She sat at the next table, ordered food & drinks and they started having peaceful conversations. Once the dinner was over I decided to go and talk to her which I did. I congratulated Jaya aunty for becoming a grand mother and reminded her of my previous meeting with her at the Delhi airport when she was with Amitabh uncle, Abhishek and Anil Ambani – all returning to Bombay in Anil’s private jet post her (and Anil’s) oath in the Rajya Sabha – which she, of course, did not remember but seemed to be happy talking about – and I genuinely complimented on her still maintained elegance and charm! She thanked me profusely and then I requested for a photograph with her. Jaya aunty very sweetly declined saying “it is an extremely private dinner; there are so many people around who too would like to do the same; hope you will understand and not mind … God bless you.” I understood of course and did not mind also! Three days later when I was returning to Delhi, I again saw her walk inside the airport wearing a beautiful dress looking every inch a “Guddi”! She had a bit of harried expression around her. Had she spent a few minutes around, I would have gone to her again, requesting her to pose for a picture with me – this time at a public place, giving her no opportunity to refuse! … Her departure started a discussion about this entire phenomenon called “celebrity-admirer” relationship. And I decided to pen down my thoughts. So, here I am …

Watching Jaya aunty board the aircraft to Bombay I got reminded of an article by a celebrated journalist more than half a decade back in one of the national dailies in which he (a hint!) lamented the species called “admirers” – a “fan” in popular parlance – and labeling them to be “Goodwill Hunters”! Well, he must have had his own reasons (very flimsy from his account in the piece though) but it hurt me immensely. Because I am also a fan of a very few but have never indulged into “goodwill hunting” – so far!

The “Goodwill Hunting” term hurt me because as an active person with interest in various fields I have met many a celebrities, have interacted with them, taken snaps with a few but I do not think that being a non-celebrity, I have ever tried to “hunt them down for any goodwill”! No way.

Of course, there many people who are real fanatics (fan comes from fanatics!) in their hero-worship but this kind of frenzied behavior is reserved for a select few and that too at select places – few film stars and few cricketers being amongst this coveted club! General public otherwise is so ignorant about most of the things that people – celebrities – in most of the fields other than film and cricket are not even known, forget about being recognized! Thus, the bizarre attitude of a few little known names/faces is so offending that you actually wonder at their fantasy about their own self!

Here is the disclaimer: I admire/respect many celebrities/achievers but am a “fan” of very few; they being authors (Orhan Pamuk, Shashi Tharoor), anchor (Arnab Goswami), industrialist (Ratan Tata), social leader (Anna Hazare), film star (Amitabh Bachchan), journalists (Karan Thapar, Vir Sanghvi), politicians (Rajiv Gandhi, Barack Obama), cricketers (MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar), sports (Michael Schumacher, Boris Becker) and my ultimate favorite Mahatma Gandhi! And I have never ever tried “goodwill hunting” with any of them! …

Only a couple of months back I was watching Ranbir Kapoor talk about ‘fans’ on “Frankly Speaking” on Times Now and I found his thoughts to be refreshing! He mentioned about his father’s haughty behavior towards the “approaching fans” and thus his determination as a young kid that if ever he became a celebrity he would always respect his fans because it is because of the fans that a film star is born and sustained! He sounded noble and “hat-ke” though in reality if he really practices it is yet to be confirmed…

I also find one more aspect very odd about many of the celebrities. That if you correspond with famous people (not because you want to trespass/harass but only to share your opinion on certain issues and the celebrity in question need not be from ‘your set of favorites’), they will not respond; or if they do ‘oblige’, most of the time they will not address the person with his/her name. And if they do, they will not use the expression “dear” before the name. Now, prefixing “dear” is just a civilized way of writing/replying; no fool (recipient/fan) will ever believe that he/she has become a “dear” of the personality!

Not that I blame them entirely for their strange attitude. Sometimes admirers can be really rude and unforgiving and crazy but generally they are supportive and understanding. I also realize that they are so hard pressed for time that taking time out for responding to each and every email/letter could become hugely challenging (by the way, how many such personalities would be there in this world?!). I also buy the argument that they are humans too and thus need personal space in their ever-crowded environment in which every person is out there hungry for a piece of him/her! In many instances, their own insecurities and personal troubles could be so overwhelming that they live cocooned and seldom bother to look around and savor the privileges bestowed upon them by virtue of being successful/known in their chosen field! Nevertheless, what I also understand from all this is that they clearly fail to understand the favorite-fan relationship.

This celebrity-fan relationship is very interesting. And divine. Though friends of a celebrity are often because of his/her fame, but fans are like stars in the universe: shining for him/her with ‘moral support & well-wishes’ from afar but never crossing their paths to cause eclipses like ‘planets and satellites’! This relationship is absolutely one-sided, without any kind of expectation from the more blessed one, though the latter get taken-for-granted often in this divinely unbalanced equation. And there is no “goodwill hunting”, for God’s sake!

Nevertheless, I remain a fan, forever … J

Thanks, Schumi, for getting me back-on-track!

I vividly remember the last race of the 2006 season in Brazil which was incidentally Michael Schumacher’s last race as well. A couple of races back he had already announced his retirement from Formula 1 to great disappointment – heartbreak, actually - of his millions of fans all around the world. A first podium finish at the Brazilian GP was crucial for him to win his 8^th Championship Title - and end his career like a champion, a status he lived and loved holding and defending! But this was not to happen as the situation which unfolded at Sao Paolo was highly improbable. He was required to finish first with Fernando Alonso ending up with no points absolutely at the race! Unfortunately, as the fate would have it, Schumi encountered an engine failure which forced him to start at P-10, followed by a tyre puncture which made it clear that he was not to end at the podium. Still, he battled hard with his trademark determination and managed 4^th position. Though his team mate Felipe Massa won the race and Fernando Alonso got crowned as the 2006 Champion, the season-ender was overshadowed by the gloom that the world was never to see the greatest of the car racers Michael Schumacher on a race track ever again. There was huge heaviness in every heart, mine included.

Michael Schumacher’s retirement ensured my staying away from my favourite sport as well. Formula 1 did not seem and feel the same anymore.

Three years passed since then and in those seasons I simply – sort of – dragged along watching F1 races, following my ritual of noting down the details and results in my Formula 1 diary. Ferrari - and Formula 1 - without Michael Schumacher looked devoid of all colours. But before the 2009 season ended, the world had the Good News: The King of Formula 1 Michael Schumacher was to race again!

Today, at the Bahrain GP, the season opener of 2010 F1 calendar, watching Schumi race in his new team Mercedes-Benz’s whites gave a bit of an unusual feeling – a mixture of ecstasy and a bit of agony. I was extremely happy to see him back on tracks but at the same time not seeing him in his “signature” red made the race a bit colourless. The only “red” connection he had was with his red helmet! … I know that soon I will get used to seeing him in his new team’s whitesJ

Though Schumi ended his first comeback race at 6^th position, watching Formula 1 seemed complete again! Just the feeling that amongst those 24 racers was racing my Hero along side gave a massive satisfaction and made the whole event worthwhile again, after three full years.

Now, I am waiting for Michael Schumacher to quickly get adjusted to the tracks and make podium his permanent place post races! That he will once again display his “winning instincts” and become the 2010 Race Champion, and defend his titles in many years to follow, I am 100% sure!

I just wrote this to say: Thanks Schumi, for getting me back-on-track!