The Joginder Connection

Thanks to encouragement from a blogger friend, I got the guts to post this fanatical tale.
As a little pre-nursery school kid, I was so much into the Safari Rally craze that I would sit for hours by the radio or in front of the Tv and attentively follow the rally updates. This was mostly around the time Joginder Singh was winning the annual rally like it was his homemade game or something. I don't know who, or what influenced me to get into this whole rally fanaticism but little as I was, I liked Joginder so much that every time he won, I would be happy for days on end. I bet anyone would be forgiven to think the rally legend was splitting his winnings with the silly boy that I was, lol!
Anyway, as I think back, the Kericho born “Flying Sikh” must have been a superhero of sorts to me (the way Amerikans have Superman, Batman, The Hulk, et al)& there was no way in my mind that Joginder could possibly lose. After all, he always came out the winner, so, he was the rally & the rally was him riiiight? Well, I learnt the truth the hard way.
Much later when I was a little grown, my parents told me that when Joginder finally lost (to Shekhar Mehta I think, don't remember too well when this was), I was in front of the Tv as usual and as soon as they broke the news that my hero had lost I wailed sooo hard, sooo long & sooo much you'd have thought I was bereaved! I was literally depressed for days! (no jokes!)& wouldn't want to go out & play, I refused to eat & worst of all I hated watching Tv for weeks on end. My dear parents weren't much help either, coz they had a ball as they teased me about it for weeks AND years.
I was barely out of nursery school when this happened but every time family or relatives mentioned ‘Joginder’ I thought they were out to tease me. It was both hard & silly but you know I never heard the last of it since the rally happened each year. I just couldn’t avoid being ridiculed. Up to the time I went to college, my mom (I love her to bits) would try & sneak in a Joginder joke that had everybody bursting with laughter, only this time I too found it very funny. Donnoh if that taught me to deal with losses or not but it sure left a mark on my childhood & gave me a reason to laugh at myself years later:)