Soliloquy

Five months have passed by since the previous ISL season was over, but it seems as if it was only yesterday that I came home from Margao after covering a game between FC Goa and Hyderabad. And now, a few weeks ago (September 19), Hyderabad played their first game of the new season, against Bengaluru FC in Bengaluru and my travels for this campaign began.

The Garden City was as good a place as any to mark the beginning of the new football season, and although the Nawabs were thrashed 0-3 in a game where Sunil Chhetri became the joint-highest goalscorer of the Indian Super League, I had a good time, both while working and when not.

Staying on the salubrious Mahatma Gandhi Road has its advantages, as I soon found out. Cubbon Park is barely a five-minute walk away – where I treated myself to a joyful 5km run early in the morning – as is the cheery Church Street, which seems to be filled with students and youth of all dispositions gallivanting without a care in the world.

Dosas at MTR and Central Tiffin Rooms rejuvenated my taste buds although I missed out on paying a visit to the gourmet temple I pledge allegiance to: Vidyarthi Bhavan. A glass of cold coffee at the Indian Coffee House on Church Street preceded by the purchase of the tome Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, among the other celebrations mentioned earlier, marked the beginning of the football season – and a year of forthcoming travel – for me.

If you like my work, consider visiting my website to get in touch with more of my writing. You can follow me on Twitter as well. Also, sign up for the newsletter to get regular updates coming your way. I would love to talk to you!