Gay to run in 200 M in London

Thus goes the headline of a single column news in yesterday’s (15-07-09) Deccan Herald’s sports page. What’s there in it, you may ask. Nothing except that it’s the athlete’s name and not an indication of his sexual orientation and this very fact makes me ROFL.

Yesterday, as I was going through a website that features advertisements from all around the world, a senior colleague and a typical Mr. Know-It-All, came to my corner. He pulled a chair and sat there and started a conversation. As I scrolled down we talked about some of them. There were a couple of interesting posters done for a gay film festival in Germany. Our man, then casually (I wonder how carefully some people make themselves sound/appear casual) mentioned, ‘you know, a gay is participating in next month’s World Athletic Meet’. Inside my head flashed a bulb. Yup, I too read it, may be quite absent mindedly. And the name, I might’ve thanked my grandfather for not naming his son GAY. I gave him a bewildered look and asked ‘What?’ He repeated it. ‘It’s his name’ I said. ‘No’, he retorted. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yeah’, he replied. ‘Just check it once more’ I said, fed up. He went to his place and there was silence for a while. I looked at his direction and there he stood with the newspaper. ‘You are right’ he admitted and came back with the newspaper. But the worst, quite characteristic of him though, was yet to come. ‘See nowadays it’s all in the newspapers so naturally I thought…’ and then he had a look at the athlete’s photo and blurted out, ‘it’s quite a probability that these people turn out to be gays…’

Rather than saying anything in reply I just buried my head in the newspaper and started reading further; “Triple World Champion Tyson Gay will continue his preparations for next month’s World Championships by running the 200 meters at the London Grand Prix…”