GOAT?

I once had a credit card sold to me on a 'lifetime free' basis. A year down the line, the bill for annual charges for the card came in. Indignantly, I mail the chaps about why I was getting a bill when the card was supposed to be free for a lifetime. Promptly came the reply that the card was free for the lifetime...of the card, which was one year. Since then, anyone who mentions lifetime anything...free, guarantee, whatever...gets grilled by me on whose lifetime...his, mine, the product's, his grandmother's, my pet's and so on!

I keep getting reminded of that, these days. Every other day, there is a hue and cry about someone having become the GOAT - Greatest of All Times. Surprisingly, within a couple of days or so, someone else is hailed the GOAT for the SAME reason. 'All Times' seems to mean anywhere between 2 days to 2 months or so, nowadays. Somewhat like No.1 bestsellers on Amazon which can change every two hours or so!

The strange thing is that these GOATs are almost invariably contemporary people. Makes you wonder whether people really think that nobody all through the past till right now did anything worthwhile and only those inhabiting the current world and their achievements are the greatest. (Somewhat like that 'Nothing good happened since Independence till now' thing.)

Being contemporary alone is not enough unless you are on the top RIGHT NOW. Sachin may have been God of Cricket, the GOAT is Virat. So, it is 'move over Sachin, Virat is here' time! As for Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Gary Sobers, Don Bradman...well, who are they?

Looks to me like people think that GOAT is like calling someone a 'Player of the Match' or 'Wimbledon Champion'...something that can readily change match to match, tournament to tournament, year to year. The idea that calling someone the 'Greatest' and tagging on 'All times' to it means that you think he is not only the best now, not only the best of all till the current moment, but that he will be unequaled in future also...Ah, well, what am I saying? In an era where people live from tweet to tweet, a few nanoseconds probably counts as eternity!

The easiest way, as you can see, to get my goat...err, all in small letters...is to start talking about GOATs.

Psst! Can you call me a GOAT in ranting, at least?