AT LAST IT'S OVER

Caught up with the vivas, this is the first time i couldnt find time to reflect on my passion.....ya thats FORMULA 1.

The last week will remain etched in every formula 1 fans memory for as long as the love for the sport prevails. The reason being a very obvious one , the retirement of the most successful driver EVER, MICHAEL SCHUMACHER.

Well to start with i guess i always hated Michael Schumacher, not because i loved Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen, but just because it was boring to support the already successful guy, so its better to support an underdog, fighting to establish supremacy.

Also i have time and again argued that Michaels successs was a lot coz of his luck. He has been extremely lucky at times, if formula 1 fans remember the occassions, there have been plenty when the hand of GOD literraly dropped victory in Michaels lap:)

But since the last few races when real bad luck has doged schumi , when he least needed it, i have strted thnking is it really true that we pay for our bad deeds here itself on this earth. The dialog from jhankaar beats keeps ringing into my ears "duniya gol hai aur har paap ka double role hai".

Well that being the lighter side of the whole matter, but technically speaking i dont thnk we remember ferrari blowing an engine since 2001, ferrari facing fuel pressure problems ever since i have strted watching formula 1, ferrari's tyre bursting with just a slight contact(even that still remains a controversy whether it was actually a contact with fisichela). Can anyone really imagine ferrari technical director saying that it was difficult to turn MICHAEL's car in time.

All these thngs dont seem normal at such a time when the best team in the world is running for its lost glory to a 20 smthng kid, fresh on the calender. I really cudnt believe my eyes when i saw ferrari's engine blowing off, the greatest shock of my life. Normally i feel extremely happy when thngs go wrong with ferrari or michael, dunno why but i just feel happy that others are making their mark.

But this day was exceptional, i felt actually sad, dejected and really filled with emotions unable to say in words, all the past years were like standing and staring in front, all the good days, all the clean sweeps made by michael were looking like they were being done not by michael, not by ferrari, but by some divine intervention. And today HE decided to pay back to michael, suddenly the 1500 men slogging for years day in and out were mere spectators when HE decided to intervene to deliver DIVINE JUSTICE.

Same was the experience when i saw the last race, brazil, it was again as if it was payback time for michael. the newspapers next day said ' THE FLAWED GENIUS'. I really felt sad that more than 10 years of exceptional success has earned michael this title ' the flawed genius'.

This made me realise how cynical we have grown in our attitude, all we cud see of him was his 2 mistakes made, maybe some others as well, not so significant. Why cudnt we write about the way he raced despite his brother just gng through a 350 km/hr accident directly into a wall, lying unmoved in his car on the US race track. He still raced. i dont thnk it will be easy for any human to do that. Why cant we remember that he raced when his mother was counting her last breaths in a hospital, he could have easily asked ferrari to go with a sub driver.

There have been many examples where he has shown sportsman ship that is difficult to find. But we dont care to remember and respect them, and this we includes me as well. Be it michael schumacher or anyone else, dont we have the same attitude towards everythng.

At the end of it all i was convinced that there exists GOD, and maybe it was schumi to his fans, for me it was his spirit which reflected GOD, at times it wavered, but at the end it was intact.

The most touching words to read of that day were after race when schumi hugged his father his father said " at last its over ". thats all one can say after being there and done that, its over.

I hope we see another schumacher in the making in the next few years, coz without him i guess we wont enjoy formula one as we did with him

As Sunny Makkar hopefully says
For the face of aggression whose machine always let down his performance, on the last few laps this season he drove wheel to wheel with GOD himself. There was a momentary contact and the legacy was passed. Go Kimi, scuderia ferrari and 2007 awaits you.