The Ache for Paroxysmal Brilliance

One of the upsides to an overwhelming work life is that creative ideas get a lot of time to marinate (unless they fade away into oblivion, of course, which happens more times than I’d like to admit) — like this one. In its earliest form, this essay was supposed to be an impassioned defense of parasocial relationships, as someone who has spent the better part of her life deeply immersed in live sport. And then I lost quite a bit of the footing when I was made witness to the very real, very scary political consequences of ill-formed (albeit very different) parasocial relationships (Tamil Nadu state elections, 2026). It’s still an argument I would make, but I’m less convinced by my ability to yap with conviction, so I’d rather not, even as a certified yapper. And so, this essay has taken a slightly different turn:

Something that I’ve suffered with over the last few weeks is what I’ve come to call the Ick of the Ordinary (yes, I’m wholly aware that ‘ick’ is a term strictly used within a romantic context, but my vocabulary fails me for a better word, so we roll with it). Maybe I’ll have a better articulation by the end of this exercise, but as a start, it’s the inescapable, impossible ache of being … well, ordinary. Of not having done anything recently that’s jaw-drop, take-my-breath-away extraordinary. I’ve tried tracing the origins, and I can certainly explain it away, and quite plausibly so, by the early childhood parenting I received (what is the purpose of primary school but to stand out) and the ‘pleasure to have in class’ feedback on progress reports. It might even be explained by my thorough distaste for the educational qualification I spent five years pursuing, and the resultant urge to compensate therefor, but with time, I’ve begun to wonder if the specific need to do something extraordinary, or to produce magnum opuses (yes, this is a word used in the singular, one per lifetime, but I think plural use is fair if the creator can version herself by time and by interest) stems from the years spent in aforementioned immersion. Is the resistance to mediocrity the inevitable consequence of a decade spent chasing stories of extraordinary men* doing extraordinary things?

*words in one gender shall be read to include the other, and all that.

In the course of witnessing — and writing about — cricket (and a spot of tennis) over the past decade, I’ve gone through a few iterations of myself. Off the bat — and I have no reservation in expressing this — I watched the sport for a few men. Men that were impossible to not admire as an impressionable twelve-year-old: they took seven wickets in one innings at Lord’s, they made two centuries in two innings against Australia in Australia, they played each other for five sets in their late thirties for a Grand Slam. Idolizing individual sporting heroes, was, in hindsight, almost inevitable for a young adult trying to self-assert — audacity and excellence were virtues I was beginning to hold in high regard, and Virat Kohli, (at the very least, it was a long list) supplied plenty of reasons to do so in late 2014 and early 2015. These sportspersons that I deemed heroic occupied a disproportionate part of my mental real estate. (as also the wall space in my room.) And yet, that was not how I wanted to identify myself with the sport. It seemed silly, frivolous. I went to great lengths to clarify to the people I spoke to that it was cricket, the sport, that I enjoyed, and not the cricketers. My view of it as ‘frivolous’ emerged, in part, as a response to the effortless sexism that is directed towards girls engaging in sport (taking the form, typically, of accusatory interrogation), but it was also because I was raised to be substantial. Empty performance was a cardinal sin. And so, it evolved, and rather quickly at that, from hero worship to a full-blown obsession.

At its height, no team, no tournament, no game, and no hour of the day was necessarily beyond my realm of interest. If it involved a bat and a ball, I was tuned in. In hindsight, it seems a miracle that my academic record survived that phase, because cricket took up all of my headspace — between live games, archived footage, cricket books, ESPNCricinfo and my own website, I really was one very busy girl. And when you spend that much time hyper-focused on something, it is only natural that a) it becomes a chemical truth of existence, b) you start forming parasocial relationship with the people and c) there is an irresistible familiarity that keeps you coming back. I think those were my reasons for the earliest years — normal functioning, favourite human beings, and constancy. In 2020, immediately after the Covid-linked suspension on international cricket was lifted, I wrote this:

As an introvert- and a victim of less than ideal circumstances- my social life has been mostly quiet. With time, the quietness has come to be no more than an accepted fact - and yet, on the odd day, there are these pangs of loneliness that simply don’t disappear. Not with fictitious princes, not with Romantic poetry, not with a dazzling heist. Cricket is the only thing that comes close enough. And it’s not just swing bowling therapy. Finding people who are as cuckoo about Virat Kohli and English cricket as you are, reading and reveling in the stories they have to share from the press box and sharing in the miracles that the sport has created in lives- the feeling of community is magical. And it has the power to drown out the silence and fill it with a gentle, constant song.

The language, of course, is a bit much — I was eighteen and emotional — but the sentiment it carries is true enough. I came to enjoy cricket because it made me feel like a part of something bigger than myself. But even in that form, while better than hero worship, it was still tied back to me, my headspace. It took a few more birthdays, and forced time away from the sport before I could detach cricket from my personhood, and see it for what it really was — a spectacle of human talent — what philosophers (since when do they talk about sport, anyway) call the ‘purist’ form of spectatorship:

Purists derive aesthetic pleasure from good play. They appreciate a virtuoso performance irrespective of the performer, that is, irrespective of which team or athlete delivers it (Dixon, 2016). […] For purists, a proper appreciation of the spectacle is paramount, and allegiance to a particular team threatens to undermine a proper appreciation of sport.

But through it all, irrespective of how I’ve chosen to relate to the sport on the whole, I’ve been irresistibly, unfailingly drawn by what I’ve named paroxysmal brilliance. Sport allows it — it doesn’t demand an endless uninterrupted stream of excellence. It rewards the select few that are able to accomplish it, sure, but at least to me, going off of twelve years of spectatorship, sport is defined more by the singular episodes. Seven wickets at Lord’s, 2014. First hour of play at Trent Bridge, 2015. 82 runs, Mohali, 2016. 171 runs, Derby, 2017. Run-out, Lord’s, 2019. 135*, Headingley, 2019. Gabba, 2021. An entire career of thirties and forties would be overwritten by a few brilliant hours at the crease. A few brilliant hours, of course, that you’ve worked decades for. I watch cricket seeking out those episodes — not just because they fill me with enough joy to last a year, but because their occurrence in itself is testament to years of mastery and faith. And in seeking those out in sport, over time, I have also sought them for myself. Not in its literal form— me playing sport is a possibility that mustn’t even be afforded an imagining — but yes, of course, I want the paroxysms for myself. Not for posterity. Not because I’d like people to talk about it. Simply because I can’t think of another incentive to go through the motions of life. I’d rather not make it through one week after another if I’m not taking the odd six wickets that the world pauses to take in. That I pause to take in. But six wickets in the middle of a test match where the batting team’s at 245-2 with a lead of 100 will do. I don’t want the four hundred wickets that takes me to the leaderboard.

Paroxysmally extraordinary. It’s more sustainable for an undiagnosed perfectionist, anyway — and it keeps life interesting. You never know when the first of the six wickets is coming. Or if it’ll take the inside or outside edge. Take guard.