Badminton!

Have you ever played badminton in your life? I would say, you must. Its such a wonderful game and a very good exercise. I am not sure why it is called bad-minton, where as it should be good-minton!

You would think that I am an avid badminton player and I had been playing from my childhood. Not really. I started playing four years back, and stopped playing two years back. How wonderful, ain't it? However, I like to play badminton, ever since I started playing it and I am an OK player. But it takes more than this liking to actually play badminton.

Needs more explanation, I guess. When I came to Pune, I got the feeling that such a sport doesn't exist here, as I could not spot a single badminton court around and nobody I met over here had played badminton in life. I thought that people here are more acquainted with more complicated games like lawn tennis. So I tried to switch over to lawn tennis, bought tennis balls and gear, found some people who were also naive at the game and started off. I still remember my first go at the tennis ball with a tennis racquet in a tennis court. The ball had traveled over the nearby three storied building and disappeared into the horizon. In due course, I had learned to hit the ball with more control, and I continued playing lawn tennis as long as I was in Pune and then had carried my skills all the way to the United States of America and had used it mercilessly to beat people of America who were naive at the game.

But in the last two years through which I had ditched badminton for lawn tennis, I never developed an interest in the new game. I found it not so exciting unless it was on television. Back from the US, I decided to start playing badminton again. The job was tough. First, I found a wonderful wooden indoor badminton court at Vikhroli west in Mumbai, then found some people, persuaded them to play, taught them the rules of the game and the hardest part, got them to pay for the membership. One guy was very much interested about the idea, and even bought a racquet, but till the time I took him to the club, he was under the impression that we were going to play in the parking lot! Finally I was able to start with whoever didn't back out. It didn't last long though, as I moved back to Pune.

This time, I was able to find a court, got some people who knows the game and we started to play over the weekends. Today was the third weekend since we started. Today, I lost nine out of the ten games played. Well, I always had this ability of getting the best out of the player at the other end, however naive he may be. Now that he is not naive, I should be playing more seriously. No worries. I enjoy playing, rather than winning.

Its quite late, and I am very sleepy. My wife is watching a movie. She has also learned to ignore bomb blasts. Good. Looks like it is time to get to sleep. I will wait for the advertisements to come, and then turn off the television. Thanks for the advertisers, but for them I would have been unable to touch the remote control till the end of the movie...