A Love Story: FIFA Tournaments, an iPod, and a Thousand Audiobooks
My first love is a very long story — the writing on that one is still in progress. Today, read the tale of my third love.
The story begins at the Mehran University point (the university bus) in Hyderabad. I was chatting with my dear friend Mateen bhai about how I played video games — properly, at a professional level (we didn’t actually know what “professional” meant back then; we were kids).
Mateen bhai asked: “Do you play FIFA?”
I said: “No man, I’d love to, but there’s no one to play with. Playing against the computer is no fun.”
He said: “You’ve got me, don’t you?”
“Perfect,” I said. “Come to Raheel bhai’s gaming zone, we’ll have a blast.”
Now FIFA — the football video game — I had first played it in 2002. This conversation happened in 2006, when the 2006 edition was the one everyone played.
Having made the commitment, I got Raheel bhai’s permission, installed FIFA on one of the computers, and the practice began. Mateen bhai couldn’t come for quite a few days because of other commitments.
When we finally played, we had a great time. The other regulars at the gaming zone watched us and commented on what a strange game it was — what even are the rules? — and so on.
At the time I mostly played Counter-Strike, a team game with five players a side. Our team was called Simplicity, and during matches we used the initials “Simp” (which, thinking about it today, is hilarious 😂). Team games come with a lot of infighting, which I was thoroughly sick of (truth be told, I was a useless player — it was a shooting and strategy game and I was weak at both). So I kept playing FIFA, at home and at the gaming zone. Raheel bhai, Zeeshan bhai, Fahad, and many other friends slowly got drawn to the game too.
I started playing internationally online. There was a platform called GameOn, mostly full of Iranian gamers. The connection was terrible, but we didn’t care. For the love of the game — and for business — we got tournaments running at the gaming zone. Raheel bhai was happy, we were happy.
Then I found ESL, a platform where I got to play against European players, and that’s when I learned what a professional gamer actually is. I made friends across Pakistan: Saad Naseem in Islamabad; Waleed, Umar bhai, Babar the Great, and Farrukh the Magician in Karachi; Nadeem bhai in Abbottabad. A group called FIFA Online Pakistan was born.
So where is the love in all this? Where’s the romance?
Because of this game, I went on my first fully-funded trip to Lahore to play a tournament in 2008, and again in 2009. I went to Karachi twice.
But the real gift of this game was a love that is still with me today. As the prize for winning a tournament in 2008, I received an iPod mini — a media player; you can think of it as an MP3 player.
When I got it, I had nothing to listen to. I had no real interest in music — I played 99 Problems just to feel cool.
What I did have was a burning desire to learn English. Someone, somewhere, gave me this tip: listen to English audiobooks, and if you can’t follow along at first, put the same book’s PDF on a screen in front of you — listen and read at the same time.
From that day to this one, the listening has never stopped. If I can’t sit and read a book, I make sure to listen to it. This is the love whose story runs alongside the story of my life itself. By now, the count must be in the thousands.
My apologies to all the friends whose names I’ve skipped. And if I’ve broken the language anywhere — corrections are always welcome.