Barefoot Soccer Mom

Since childhood, I have been into sports. My favourite sport was and still is table tennis. I used to play for my school and for my college. I have always been one of the good players in our office, playing table tennis at lunch times and in between times. I  represented my school for throwball, kabaddi, yoga and sun salutation competitions. My sister and I learnt swimming at a young age and we would proudly go to the pool on our cycles, swim a good 500m and cycle back.

My husband is the one who’s into football and hence my boys. Which is why I have also been a soccer mom for the past decade. Yet, somehow, even though I can safely call myself a sporty woman, I have not felt comfortable being around a football field! 

As a landscape architect, I have designed parks and open spaces with many a football field. Yet there's something awkwardly uncomfortable around it, for me!

When you have one boy playing in the U14 and the other in the U9, the “waiting period” associated with it can be excruciating, especially for a sport that I am not really interested in!

My boys keep talking only about football, football players, home kits, away kits, centre forward, center mid , off side, GOAT etc. I just don't get it! My mind automatically switches off , exactly like the times when people start speaking in Malayalam with me, because of my surname!

When the boys have football matches, I spend hours and hours waiting around the football field, pretending to be interested, cheering for some time and then quietly walking away with my book, to sit and read somewhere. But as the weather is getting better with October leading us towards a much awaited desert winter, I came up with a great plan!

Every morning , my routine includes a ten to fifteen minute barefoot walk in the lawn, saying the mantras after my flower picking ritual. It's followed by a ten minute meditation under the Frangipani, listening to the birds.

And I thought, why not continue my barefoot grass walk by the football field!!! Football field is the only place that has well maintained natural grass all around it. What could be better than a Barefoot Walk while I wait for the matches to end! Barefoot Soccer Mom! That's my new name!