No lengthy line, no extensive prose
Not a quarter paragraph, no humor dose
No thoughts to pen, no feelings to bare
No post to blog, no anecdotes to share
No baffling moments, no state of hysteria
No soupy situations, no uncharted area
No word of caution, no lessons to learn
Not a step of measure, no brownies to earn
No classroom quarrels, no ego battle
Not a point to prove, no score to settle
No eureka moments, no fancy scheme
Not a striking idea, no chance to cream
No problems to solve, no angles to draw
No equations to mug; no proof, no law
Just one little task, very precise and clear
To wish you all, a very Happy New Year
On behalf of Vishal, S14, the Science, Hindi and English teachers, the nerdy science whiz kid, the chronic topper and rest of the gang, I wish all my readers a very happy and a prosperous New Year!
May you all have a fulfilling 2010 :)
1/6/10
12/27/09
Being a Sport - 3
As I could notice, S14 was approaching me with great pace and vigor, determined to cloud me in another round of dust, when suddenly... she collapsed.
For a moment or two, I thought she might have considered taking a break from the running and chosen to study the ground’s grassy vegetation, considering the fact that she had a good minute or two before I could come close to catching up.
However, milliseconds later, my ears began to process the shrill notes of a female writhing in pain and I realised how wrong I was.
Separated by a good fifty feet or so, I began pushing myself as hard as I could in her direction. The cries got louder as I closed in and so did my heaves and wheezes. Much against the will of my body, I wished to reach her as soon as possible; perhaps if I had made running a regular habit I would have even achieved the goal.
But then, how many times you think about staying agile because the girl you like might need urgent medical attention someday?
Sadly, that was one such day. S14 needed my help and I was as slow as an ambulance on triangular wheels.
“Ess-fo... Ess-forti,” I blurted, when I finally reached my destination, panting hard enough to create an impression that it was me who deserved greater medical help.
“Are you okay?” S14 asked, looking concerned.
Now, wasn’t that my question? I just ran what felt like a thousand acres, with that very question in my mind all way long and she props it before my chance. So much for winning a race.
“Uh? I-I am good,” I said, catching breath, “I heard you scream. Are you okay?”
“My leg,” S14 winched, suddenly reminded that she was lying on the ground for a reason, “it’s stuck.”
And so it was.
Bloody rodents, I cursed, as my eyes fell upon her right leg wedged deep into a burrow.
“Are there any rats in there?” S14 enquired like I was born with vermin sensing powers.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” I replied, hoping there weren’t any.
“Okay, but how do I get out of it? I can’t stay in here all day!”
“How about you try and twist your leg a bit?” I suggested, kneeling next to her.
“No, it’s stuck so bad that I can’t even move it.”
“How about you try and nudge-”
“No.”
“How about you push-”
“No.”
“How about you-”
“No!”
Huh?
“No, no, no! I can’t move my leg, not even a bit” S14 cried, uprooting a few blades of surrounding grass.
“Hmm, I think I know how we can solve this problem without you needing to move an inch,” I said with an enlightened look on my face.
Wrong verbatim, one may say. For someone who hated Math as much as he hated that rat who burrowed the hole which now temporarily housed S14’s right leg, ‘solving’ something was perhaps far cry.
“How?” S14 asked, looking doubtful.
“Wait right here, let me find a big stone,” I said, getting up.
“A stone?” S14 gasped, perhaps fearing I was planning to amputate her out of the problem or something. Suddenly, rats in the hole wasn’t the biggest concern for this girl.
“Yeah, trust me,” I smiled, keeping the suspense intact.
Seconds later, I had a considerably large stone and a considerably shaken girl in my custody.
“Now, stay put, don’t move okay?” I instructed, taking position.
S14 nodded, looking aptly horror-stricken.
Raising the boulder few feet above ground level, I applied it on the land that roofed her leg with measured force. The effect was visible immediately and so was my plan.
The patch began to develop cracks and loosen up. Couple more hits later, it was all left to me using my hands to bulldoze the pieces off and thus liberate S14’s leg from its earthy confinement.
“Looks like I’ve sprained my ankle,” she said, taking a toll of the damages.
Her leg was swollen pretty badly around the ankle area and had developed rashes all way up to the knee. Hairline fracture, I would have said. However, considering the patient’s mental and physical state, it was vital that I kept my diagnosis to myself and just stick to nodding in solidarity.
“Yeah, and very minor one too,” I said and extended a hand to help her get up.
“How am I gonna participate in the heats next week?” S14 rued, trying to steady up.
A minute ago she was worried about her chances of ever watching herself walk again and now she’s concerned about her absence as a participant at Sports Day. Fantastic.
Then suddenly, without warning, she put her other hand around my shoulders and latched on me, causing me to almost shrug her off in fright. Though I must admit I had visualised this scene at least a dozen times per day on average, I never knew it would be for such reason and this awkward.
“By the way, thanks,” S14 said, smiling at me, as we prepared to trudge towards where we kept our bags.
“What for?”
“For helping me out of that mess.”
“Oh c’mon, it was the least I could have done.”
“You could have easily finished the race and then help me out,” S14 said. “I wasn’t going anywhere!”
I could? Hell yes I could. Why didn’t I think of this before?
“But you sacrificed your winning situation and chose to help me instead, that’s so sporting of you!”
I did? Hell yes I did. That’s why I didn’t think of that before, at least that’s how it would remain for the rest of this conversation.
“Ah well, how could have I thought about winning that race with you in so much pain? I mean I certainly knew that I could have won the race and all, but you had fallen on the ground and-”
“You know something, I like sporting more than sporty,” S14 said, smiling shyly.
“You do? T-That’s good,” I said, feeling a lump at my throat.
“Yes I do, Mr. Carl Lewis!”
Okay, I know the race was left unfinished but that didn’t mean we were starting all over again. Were we?
“S14 I must apologise for calling your favourite athlete a-”
“No you needn’t, not a big deal really,” S14 dismissed, like it was never an issue. “To tell you something, I too mistook her someone else when my last boyfriend first told me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah and since then he always used to tease me about it. He even told all his friends that they too started picking me over that. Hence, when you did the same I suddenly saw myself in the same situation again and hence, got a bit defensive. I am sorry.”
What was I hearing? S14 had apologised, to me? If I knew that falling into a burrow would yield such brilliant results, I would have employed an army of mongooses and trained them to dig holes all around the school property, many weeks ago.
“No, not a problem,” I said, lending a cheek-to-cheek smile, “not a problem at all!”
“So, we are cool then?” S14 asked, smiling back.
“Oh yeah, super-cool!”
With S14’s left hand over my shoulders and her schoolbag in my left, I had readily transformed into her human crutch cum bellboy and we limped in tandem towards the auto-rickshaw stand.
“So there you go, all set,” I said when we reached our destination.
“Thanks again,” S14 said, halting next to a waiting rick.
“No problem, again,” I said, helping her into the vehicle.
As S14’s rickshaw took off, I saw her craning out her head and smiling at me.
There was something there, right when she smiled, hinting me that though there may be no need to start the race all over again, there’s something else that was about to start soon, very soon.
So much for winning a race :)
For a moment or two, I thought she might have considered taking a break from the running and chosen to study the ground’s grassy vegetation, considering the fact that she had a good minute or two before I could come close to catching up.
However, milliseconds later, my ears began to process the shrill notes of a female writhing in pain and I realised how wrong I was.
Separated by a good fifty feet or so, I began pushing myself as hard as I could in her direction. The cries got louder as I closed in and so did my heaves and wheezes. Much against the will of my body, I wished to reach her as soon as possible; perhaps if I had made running a regular habit I would have even achieved the goal.
But then, how many times you think about staying agile because the girl you like might need urgent medical attention someday?
Sadly, that was one such day. S14 needed my help and I was as slow as an ambulance on triangular wheels.
“Ess-fo... Ess-forti,” I blurted, when I finally reached my destination, panting hard enough to create an impression that it was me who deserved greater medical help.
“Are you okay?” S14 asked, looking concerned.
Now, wasn’t that my question? I just ran what felt like a thousand acres, with that very question in my mind all way long and she props it before my chance. So much for winning a race.
“Uh? I-I am good,” I said, catching breath, “I heard you scream. Are you okay?”
“My leg,” S14 winched, suddenly reminded that she was lying on the ground for a reason, “it’s stuck.”
And so it was.
Bloody rodents, I cursed, as my eyes fell upon her right leg wedged deep into a burrow.
“Are there any rats in there?” S14 enquired like I was born with vermin sensing powers.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” I replied, hoping there weren’t any.
“Okay, but how do I get out of it? I can’t stay in here all day!”
“How about you try and twist your leg a bit?” I suggested, kneeling next to her.
“No, it’s stuck so bad that I can’t even move it.”
“How about you try and nudge-”
“No.”
“How about you push-”
“No.”
“How about you-”
“No!”
Huh?
“No, no, no! I can’t move my leg, not even a bit” S14 cried, uprooting a few blades of surrounding grass.
“Hmm, I think I know how we can solve this problem without you needing to move an inch,” I said with an enlightened look on my face.
Wrong verbatim, one may say. For someone who hated Math as much as he hated that rat who burrowed the hole which now temporarily housed S14’s right leg, ‘solving’ something was perhaps far cry.
“How?” S14 asked, looking doubtful.
“Wait right here, let me find a big stone,” I said, getting up.
“A stone?” S14 gasped, perhaps fearing I was planning to amputate her out of the problem or something. Suddenly, rats in the hole wasn’t the biggest concern for this girl.
“Yeah, trust me,” I smiled, keeping the suspense intact.
Seconds later, I had a considerably large stone and a considerably shaken girl in my custody.
“Now, stay put, don’t move okay?” I instructed, taking position.
S14 nodded, looking aptly horror-stricken.
Raising the boulder few feet above ground level, I applied it on the land that roofed her leg with measured force. The effect was visible immediately and so was my plan.
The patch began to develop cracks and loosen up. Couple more hits later, it was all left to me using my hands to bulldoze the pieces off and thus liberate S14’s leg from its earthy confinement.
“Looks like I’ve sprained my ankle,” she said, taking a toll of the damages.
Her leg was swollen pretty badly around the ankle area and had developed rashes all way up to the knee. Hairline fracture, I would have said. However, considering the patient’s mental and physical state, it was vital that I kept my diagnosis to myself and just stick to nodding in solidarity.
“Yeah, and very minor one too,” I said and extended a hand to help her get up.
“How am I gonna participate in the heats next week?” S14 rued, trying to steady up.
A minute ago she was worried about her chances of ever watching herself walk again and now she’s concerned about her absence as a participant at Sports Day. Fantastic.
Then suddenly, without warning, she put her other hand around my shoulders and latched on me, causing me to almost shrug her off in fright. Though I must admit I had visualised this scene at least a dozen times per day on average, I never knew it would be for such reason and this awkward.
“By the way, thanks,” S14 said, smiling at me, as we prepared to trudge towards where we kept our bags.
“What for?”
“For helping me out of that mess.”
“Oh c’mon, it was the least I could have done.”
“You could have easily finished the race and then help me out,” S14 said. “I wasn’t going anywhere!”
I could? Hell yes I could. Why didn’t I think of this before?
“But you sacrificed your winning situation and chose to help me instead, that’s so sporting of you!”
I did? Hell yes I did. That’s why I didn’t think of that before, at least that’s how it would remain for the rest of this conversation.
“Ah well, how could have I thought about winning that race with you in so much pain? I mean I certainly knew that I could have won the race and all, but you had fallen on the ground and-”
“You know something, I like sporting more than sporty,” S14 said, smiling shyly.
“You do? T-That’s good,” I said, feeling a lump at my throat.
“Yes I do, Mr. Carl Lewis!”
Okay, I know the race was left unfinished but that didn’t mean we were starting all over again. Were we?
“S14 I must apologise for calling your favourite athlete a-”
“No you needn’t, not a big deal really,” S14 dismissed, like it was never an issue. “To tell you something, I too mistook her someone else when my last boyfriend first told me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah and since then he always used to tease me about it. He even told all his friends that they too started picking me over that. Hence, when you did the same I suddenly saw myself in the same situation again and hence, got a bit defensive. I am sorry.”
What was I hearing? S14 had apologised, to me? If I knew that falling into a burrow would yield such brilliant results, I would have employed an army of mongooses and trained them to dig holes all around the school property, many weeks ago.
“No, not a problem,” I said, lending a cheek-to-cheek smile, “not a problem at all!”
“So, we are cool then?” S14 asked, smiling back.
“Oh yeah, super-cool!”
With S14’s left hand over my shoulders and her schoolbag in my left, I had readily transformed into her human crutch cum bellboy and we limped in tandem towards the auto-rickshaw stand.
“So there you go, all set,” I said when we reached our destination.
“Thanks again,” S14 said, halting next to a waiting rick.
“No problem, again,” I said, helping her into the vehicle.
As S14’s rickshaw took off, I saw her craning out her head and smiling at me.
There was something there, right when she smiled, hinting me that though there may be no need to start the race all over again, there’s something else that was about to start soon, very soon.
So much for winning a race :)
12/22/09
Being a Sport - 2
"I am saying I don’t want to talk to you. You must be a big Carl Lewis or a Ben Johnson fan but that does not mean you make fun of Marion," S14 hissed.
Fantastic... With very little effort, I had managed to hurt her feminist instincts.
Now what?
What’s in a name, one may ask.
Perhaps not much. What’s called a rose would certainly smell as sweet as it does if it were called a cauliflower; maybe not taste as good as one.
However if you happened to seek my opinion on this very topic roughly thirteen years ago during that eventful Science lecture, I would have said there are 206 bones in our body and each is named differently not just for the heck of it. There has to be some logic behind what you may want to call something or say, someone.
As I sat flummoxed on my part of the most sought-after bench in four divisions wondering what part of ‘Marion Jones’ sounded feminine, my sinking heart earnestly wished one American family had applied the same logic before deciding upon a name of their quickest running daughter.
How compelling my naming theory might have been, something told me that it just wasn’t enough to convince S14 out of her grumpiness. Learning from the recent chain of events, she might even consider walking to our teacher’s desk and borrowing the human skull from her collection, taking good aim and flinging it in my direction like one might fling a grenade at an enemy bunker; if I chose to bring up the topic with her.
Hence with rational thinking ruled out, I had to figure out something else, something better... something Plan B.
“Please S14 please, please try to understand me,” I pleaded, begging for her forgiveness, “I didn’t want to make fun of anyone, trust me.”
“Anyone? Did you say anyone?” S14 snared, taking the matter a bit too personally if you ask me. “For your kind information mister, my Marion’s not anyone. She’s the best sprinter in the world and can outrun your Carl Lewis with a whole minute to spare.”
Her Marion? My Carl Lewis? What does this girl play with? Athlete action figures?
Okay, Plan B seemed to have landed a turkey, but the way I saw it, it wasn’t a complete failure either.
To the untrained eyes snooping at us from the neighboring benches, clearly finding our hushed argument far more engrossing than knowing about tarsals and metatarsals, it might have looked like I had managed to infuriate her more than I possibly could. However, the fact was that it actually gave the female activist within her some fodder to chew on.
It had helped her to unleash her wrath on the whole male sporting fraternity including her ex-boyfriend who by now seemed like a total MCP to me. The feeling of kinship towards her kind and the random piece of what seemed to be (not that I really cared about) a wishful piece of sporting trivia were the clues.
The bait was taken and now I only had to suck up a little more, just a little more and I had my fish reeling back to her bossy, self-adoring, perfectionist self. Oh, how much I missed her that way.
“I think you’ve just opened my eyes,” I said with glistening sincerity. “How wrong could I have been? I totally take my words back and promise not to-”
“How about,” S14 interjected, looking at me for the first time in seven minutes, “you and me, after school, sports ground?”
Normally, such an offer would have sounded as appealing as watching our Hindi teacher being mauled by a ferocious pack of wolves, but keeping the situation in mind, I was forced to give it a second thought.
“What? I mean why?”
“Why else do you think mister?”
Why else did I think? To summon her army of admirers and lynch me in public? Or perhaps, take the task solely upon her self? How was I supposed to know?
“Okay, if you say so,” I agreed, like I had an option.
The bell rang, signaling the end of lecture and school for that day.
“See you at the ground in five minutes,” S14 said and rushed from her seat, leaving me with my naming theory, an imaginary fishing rod and the unaccomplished half of Plan B.
For those who are interested to know, my school consisted of three concrete structures, namely, the main building, the playschool and the church. An impressive looking ground made up for the space between these edifices. That wasn’t the Sports Ground.
The Sports Ground was a neglected piece of school property located right behind the main building. With rodents inhabiting almost every inch of its hundred and fifty feet area, neatly marking their territories with holes big enough to fit an adult Pomeranian with ease, the place looked more like an abandoned minefield than a playground.
Why would a girl like S14 call a guy like me to a place like that? The possibilities were endless.
By the time I reached the venue, she was already there, performing what looked like stretching exercises akin to the ones performed by Taekwondo practitioners before a major bout.
So she did want to kick my butt in private, I thought, swallowing hard.
Like a sacrificial lamb walking towards the pedestal with a clear idea of what was about to follow next, I gulped in a large volume of air and quietly walked towards her, preparing for the worst.
“So you are finally here,” S14 said as she saw me coming; her legs spread at wide angles and her right hand miraculously clutching on to the frail end of her left toe.
I nodded timidly.
“Don’t you want to warm a bit before we begin?” S14 enquired, performing her acrobatic stunts with shocking ease and flexibility.
“Warm up? I don’t know-”
“Oh I see, so you don’t think you need to warm up, huh?” S14 interrupted, breaking from her flexing routine for the first time. “Suits you mister, but even the pros tell us to never miss a warm up before an event.”
An event? Butt-kicking was perhaps a celebrated sport in Canada, I thought.
“So what do you prefer? A 100 meter sprint or a 200 meter dash?” S14 asked, tying her hair into a cute little bunch. “I would suggest we mark that pole right there and then cover the same distance back, what say?”
Okay, I do get the part where am guilty and I deserve a good punishment, but to the pole and back? What was she planning to do? Kick my butt while making me run for my life?
“Now drop the bag and take your position," S14 ordered, morphing into a half-kneeling, half-hunching like stance, "remember, like professionals, on the count of three, okay?”
So, this is what it was, I thought, smiling to my self.
While I feared being kicked around the circumference, all she wanted to do was stage a race and win it. Considering the fact that I wouldn’t anything against her even if I were given a year’s preparation time, I didn’t even need to fake this one. I just had to keep it going while she crossed the finish line and there it was, all done. This was so much easier than I expected!
“On your marks, get set…” S14 called out, rising up a bit from her position.
Go, go, go, I cheered mentally, while trying to keep up with her abrupt change of body movements.
“Go!”
And there it was... Like the champion athlete that she was, S14 took off like a F16 released from a giant slingshot, leaving me behind in a massive cloud of dust.
By the time the dust settled down, I had barely moved a few feet from the starting line, but she had reached the far end of the ground. Within no time, S14 swung around the pole and was on course to meet me on her way back, before she would cross the finish line.
Just a few more seconds and we are through with this my-athlete, your-athlete crap for good, I thought and wheezed; trying to talk myself through the ordeal as my body started showing signs of protest.
As I could notice, S14 was approaching me with great pace and vigor, determined to cloud me in another round of dust, when suddenly... she collapsed.
(To be continued in the next post...)
Fantastic... With very little effort, I had managed to hurt her feminist instincts.
Now what?
What’s in a name, one may ask.
Perhaps not much. What’s called a rose would certainly smell as sweet as it does if it were called a cauliflower; maybe not taste as good as one.
However if you happened to seek my opinion on this very topic roughly thirteen years ago during that eventful Science lecture, I would have said there are 206 bones in our body and each is named differently not just for the heck of it. There has to be some logic behind what you may want to call something or say, someone.
As I sat flummoxed on my part of the most sought-after bench in four divisions wondering what part of ‘Marion Jones’ sounded feminine, my sinking heart earnestly wished one American family had applied the same logic before deciding upon a name of their quickest running daughter.
How compelling my naming theory might have been, something told me that it just wasn’t enough to convince S14 out of her grumpiness. Learning from the recent chain of events, she might even consider walking to our teacher’s desk and borrowing the human skull from her collection, taking good aim and flinging it in my direction like one might fling a grenade at an enemy bunker; if I chose to bring up the topic with her.
Hence with rational thinking ruled out, I had to figure out something else, something better... something Plan B.
“Please S14 please, please try to understand me,” I pleaded, begging for her forgiveness, “I didn’t want to make fun of anyone, trust me.”
“Anyone? Did you say anyone?” S14 snared, taking the matter a bit too personally if you ask me. “For your kind information mister, my Marion’s not anyone. She’s the best sprinter in the world and can outrun your Carl Lewis with a whole minute to spare.”
Her Marion? My Carl Lewis? What does this girl play with? Athlete action figures?
Okay, Plan B seemed to have landed a turkey, but the way I saw it, it wasn’t a complete failure either.
To the untrained eyes snooping at us from the neighboring benches, clearly finding our hushed argument far more engrossing than knowing about tarsals and metatarsals, it might have looked like I had managed to infuriate her more than I possibly could. However, the fact was that it actually gave the female activist within her some fodder to chew on.
It had helped her to unleash her wrath on the whole male sporting fraternity including her ex-boyfriend who by now seemed like a total MCP to me. The feeling of kinship towards her kind and the random piece of what seemed to be (not that I really cared about) a wishful piece of sporting trivia were the clues.
The bait was taken and now I only had to suck up a little more, just a little more and I had my fish reeling back to her bossy, self-adoring, perfectionist self. Oh, how much I missed her that way.
“I think you’ve just opened my eyes,” I said with glistening sincerity. “How wrong could I have been? I totally take my words back and promise not to-”
“How about,” S14 interjected, looking at me for the first time in seven minutes, “you and me, after school, sports ground?”
Normally, such an offer would have sounded as appealing as watching our Hindi teacher being mauled by a ferocious pack of wolves, but keeping the situation in mind, I was forced to give it a second thought.
“What? I mean why?”
“Why else do you think mister?”
Why else did I think? To summon her army of admirers and lynch me in public? Or perhaps, take the task solely upon her self? How was I supposed to know?
“Okay, if you say so,” I agreed, like I had an option.
The bell rang, signaling the end of lecture and school for that day.
“See you at the ground in five minutes,” S14 said and rushed from her seat, leaving me with my naming theory, an imaginary fishing rod and the unaccomplished half of Plan B.
For those who are interested to know, my school consisted of three concrete structures, namely, the main building, the playschool and the church. An impressive looking ground made up for the space between these edifices. That wasn’t the Sports Ground.
The Sports Ground was a neglected piece of school property located right behind the main building. With rodents inhabiting almost every inch of its hundred and fifty feet area, neatly marking their territories with holes big enough to fit an adult Pomeranian with ease, the place looked more like an abandoned minefield than a playground.
Why would a girl like S14 call a guy like me to a place like that? The possibilities were endless.
By the time I reached the venue, she was already there, performing what looked like stretching exercises akin to the ones performed by Taekwondo practitioners before a major bout.
So she did want to kick my butt in private, I thought, swallowing hard.
Like a sacrificial lamb walking towards the pedestal with a clear idea of what was about to follow next, I gulped in a large volume of air and quietly walked towards her, preparing for the worst.
“So you are finally here,” S14 said as she saw me coming; her legs spread at wide angles and her right hand miraculously clutching on to the frail end of her left toe.
I nodded timidly.
“Don’t you want to warm a bit before we begin?” S14 enquired, performing her acrobatic stunts with shocking ease and flexibility.
“Warm up? I don’t know-”
“Oh I see, so you don’t think you need to warm up, huh?” S14 interrupted, breaking from her flexing routine for the first time. “Suits you mister, but even the pros tell us to never miss a warm up before an event.”
An event? Butt-kicking was perhaps a celebrated sport in Canada, I thought.
“So what do you prefer? A 100 meter sprint or a 200 meter dash?” S14 asked, tying her hair into a cute little bunch. “I would suggest we mark that pole right there and then cover the same distance back, what say?”
Okay, I do get the part where am guilty and I deserve a good punishment, but to the pole and back? What was she planning to do? Kick my butt while making me run for my life?
“Now drop the bag and take your position," S14 ordered, morphing into a half-kneeling, half-hunching like stance, "remember, like professionals, on the count of three, okay?”
So, this is what it was, I thought, smiling to my self.
While I feared being kicked around the circumference, all she wanted to do was stage a race and win it. Considering the fact that I wouldn’t anything against her even if I were given a year’s preparation time, I didn’t even need to fake this one. I just had to keep it going while she crossed the finish line and there it was, all done. This was so much easier than I expected!
“On your marks, get set…” S14 called out, rising up a bit from her position.
Go, go, go, I cheered mentally, while trying to keep up with her abrupt change of body movements.
“Go!”
And there it was... Like the champion athlete that she was, S14 took off like a F16 released from a giant slingshot, leaving me behind in a massive cloud of dust.
By the time the dust settled down, I had barely moved a few feet from the starting line, but she had reached the far end of the ground. Within no time, S14 swung around the pole and was on course to meet me on her way back, before she would cross the finish line.
Just a few more seconds and we are through with this my-athlete, your-athlete crap for good, I thought and wheezed; trying to talk myself through the ordeal as my body started showing signs of protest.
As I could notice, S14 was approaching me with great pace and vigor, determined to cloud me in another round of dust, when suddenly... she collapsed.
(To be continued in the next post...)
12/10/09
Being a Sport
It is my belief that within the normal span of our lifetimes, each of us is given an opportunity, one chance, a single calendar day to announce our arrival and prove the world what we really are capable of. And for each one of us, this blessing may arrive in a different disguise.
For some, it could be a heroic day on the battlefield while for some on a cricket field. It could be an office Monday for one or a box office Friday for another. An Olympic medal for a chosen few and perhaps, a school sports medal for its future recipients.
Sports Day at school was one such event that occurred every year with a promise of a fair chance to all who wished to make a mark amongst their peers. It gave the bullied a chance to set some scores straight and the chronic backbencher to prove why he deserves something other than canework and homework. It gave the Romeos a chance to sweep their would-like-to-be Juliets of their feet if they managed to swipe a medal or two. All this in full view of the entire school fraternity – maximum coverage.
Nevertheless, the significance of this day to my school life was as much as of the release of a saucy C-grade film to a Zen monk. The thing was, at a very early age, I had earned the ability to look at things from a higher karmic level. This allowed me to gauge the frivolity of such puerile gatherings and avoid them at will.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly the case.
Truth be told, how much I might have wanted to, I could never really find myself rubbing shoulders with the Sports Day hunks who could have easily made a fortune if they ever decided to sell all the metal they had earned for scrap. Plainly said, I could never muster the courage or the motivation to put myself through the ordeal of early morning jogs, unsympathetic diet regimes and truck load of tendon splitting exercises. Nonetheless, I always enjoyed watching the show from the sidelines with a bottle of Coke and a pack of popcorn for company.
Back in the autumn of 1996, it was that time of the year again. My mood was set for a similar showdown. Like a kid knowing the circus was about to come to his town soon, I had begun to anticipate the antics of a handful brave souls who would soon be running, hopping, skipping, jumping, throwing and catching their wits out over few circular pieces of metal, when...
"Sports Day is just around the corner!"
It had been a little more than a month since S14 had ‘moved in’ with me. Apart from the occasional tantrum thrown over a Math problem solving session gone problematic or some homework assignment not done as it was supposed to be or not done at all, I seemed to be enjoying her presence at large.
"What? Oh is it," I said, wondering why that was a reason to be so cheery about.
Though I had to admit that anything compared to the sight of our Science teacher prancing to and fro with a human skull in one and a thigh bone in the other hand was a matter of pure joy, I quite didn’t expect her to be so psyched about the annual Sports Day event. I mean, what did a bossy, geography-loving bookworm like her know anything about having fun? Huh.
Perhaps this year they might have declared a holiday for all non-participants, I thought.
"So, will you be participating?" S14 enquired, looking at me intently, her voice barely reaching my eardrums thanks to the skeleton show that was taking place a few rows ahead.
"Participating? Like in an event? Well, I really don-"
"I like guys who kind of sporty, you know," S14 interrupted, smiling cutely.
"I am," I said and paused, using the time to wonder what on earth was I doing, "participating, I guess."
"You are? Hey that’s really cool!" S14 chirped, sounding as excited as if I had just told her that I happened to be Ben Johnson’s personal trainer.
"Yeah, I mean, like every year, this year too I would be participating of course," I said, basking in my artificial glory.
Okay, I know I wasn’t correct, not even a bit, but then, what the heck? I could have even admitted to juggling chainsaws blindfolded while balancing on a rope tied over a pond infested by crocodiles, if that meant S14 showering compliments at me.
"So, what kind of sports are you into?" S14 asked eagerly.
"Uh, I am basically into the running and sprinting stuff, you know?" I said, using some time to think.
"You mean track and field events? Like athletics?" S14 asked, sounding tad suspicious of my claims.
"Yes, exactly, athletics!" I said, visibly glad you have been reminded of the term. "So you knew the word, eh? I just thought you might not know it hence I..."
"I just happen to know a few things here and there. I am pretty new to this field you see," S14 admitted, nodding her head.
Ha! Miss. Pretty-New-To-This-Field... You clearly have no idea how brand new I am to the concept of running for no particular reason, I thought and smiled to myself.
"I’ve been participating for only about three years now, that too only when my last boyfriend insisted that I should."
Something seemed to have exploded in my cranium - as our Science teacher told it was also called.
Three years? Last boyfriend? I suddenly found myself in a state of acute bafflement. Which of these two dilemmas deserved greater and immediate attention?
"P-Participating for the last three years?" I asked, picking the former as it seemed less personal and more relevant to the situation at hand.
"Yes, I know I should have started off early," S14 said, "I’ve only managed to represent my school at the track event twice before we had to move here, you know?"
What does this girl eat, I couldn’t help but wonder.
"My last boyfriend was the school sports champ, and hence I said I like guys who are into sports," she said, smiling slyly.
Now, I must admit I was starting to lose my patience over this ‘my last boyfriend’ thing. If her vocabulary allowed her to think of words like ‘athletics’, why couldn’t she just replace that term with something suitable? Like say, a ‘moron’ or a ‘twerp’?
"Hmm, that’s very good. I like people who are into sports as well," I said, hesitatingly.
"Really? Who is your favorite athlete?"
"My favorite athlete?" I asked, suddenly reminded of a similar predicament that I was in previously.
Now, what was this game called? Naming the Athletes? Why couldn’t we just stick to pushing pens around the desk or drawing x and zeroes like the good old times?
"Shall I tell you my favorite athlete?" S14 hurriedly offered, as our Science teacher replaced her last two skeletal artifacts with one that seemed to have originated from the groin area.
"Please do," I said, relieved.
"I just like Marion Jones! Don’t you like Marion Jones?"
"Oh yes, me too!" I said, determined to milk the given opportunity dry, "I totally dig Marion Jones. I think he’s a wonderful athlete, what skill, what pace, what-"
"Marion's a female."
"Yeah, what female, what... what?"
"I know what you are trying to do," S14 frowned, her voice turning into something that distinctly reminded me of not completing my homework on time. She had also choosen to look away from me and at the piece of groin.
"You do? I mean, I don't really get what you-"
"You remind me of my last boyfriend, he used to speak just like you."
Okay, I might not be all Mr. Clean here but I certainly didn’t deserve to be compared to that ‘my-last-boyfriend’ specimen. While S14 kept whispering to herself, I imagined beating the crap out of that jerk with the groin bone or the pelvic girdle as I soon learnt it was called.
"Each of you are the same, I should have know this before, I am a fool to think that you could be different, but no, you all are-"
"S14... S14..." I had to interrupt her, "I really can’t hear or understand what you are trying to say, could you please be a little audible?"
"I am saying I don’t want to talk to you. You must be a big Carl Lewis or a Ben Johnson fan but that does not mean you make fun of Marion," S14 hissed.
Fantastic... With very little effort, I had managed to hurt her feminist instincts.
Now what?
(To be continued in the next post...)
For some, it could be a heroic day on the battlefield while for some on a cricket field. It could be an office Monday for one or a box office Friday for another. An Olympic medal for a chosen few and perhaps, a school sports medal for its future recipients.
Sports Day at school was one such event that occurred every year with a promise of a fair chance to all who wished to make a mark amongst their peers. It gave the bullied a chance to set some scores straight and the chronic backbencher to prove why he deserves something other than canework and homework. It gave the Romeos a chance to sweep their would-like-to-be Juliets of their feet if they managed to swipe a medal or two. All this in full view of the entire school fraternity – maximum coverage.
Nevertheless, the significance of this day to my school life was as much as of the release of a saucy C-grade film to a Zen monk. The thing was, at a very early age, I had earned the ability to look at things from a higher karmic level. This allowed me to gauge the frivolity of such puerile gatherings and avoid them at will.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly the case.
Truth be told, how much I might have wanted to, I could never really find myself rubbing shoulders with the Sports Day hunks who could have easily made a fortune if they ever decided to sell all the metal they had earned for scrap. Plainly said, I could never muster the courage or the motivation to put myself through the ordeal of early morning jogs, unsympathetic diet regimes and truck load of tendon splitting exercises. Nonetheless, I always enjoyed watching the show from the sidelines with a bottle of Coke and a pack of popcorn for company.
Back in the autumn of 1996, it was that time of the year again. My mood was set for a similar showdown. Like a kid knowing the circus was about to come to his town soon, I had begun to anticipate the antics of a handful brave souls who would soon be running, hopping, skipping, jumping, throwing and catching their wits out over few circular pieces of metal, when...
"Sports Day is just around the corner!"
It had been a little more than a month since S14 had ‘moved in’ with me. Apart from the occasional tantrum thrown over a Math problem solving session gone problematic or some homework assignment not done as it was supposed to be or not done at all, I seemed to be enjoying her presence at large.
"What? Oh is it," I said, wondering why that was a reason to be so cheery about.
Though I had to admit that anything compared to the sight of our Science teacher prancing to and fro with a human skull in one and a thigh bone in the other hand was a matter of pure joy, I quite didn’t expect her to be so psyched about the annual Sports Day event. I mean, what did a bossy, geography-loving bookworm like her know anything about having fun? Huh.
Perhaps this year they might have declared a holiday for all non-participants, I thought.
"So, will you be participating?" S14 enquired, looking at me intently, her voice barely reaching my eardrums thanks to the skeleton show that was taking place a few rows ahead.
"Participating? Like in an event? Well, I really don-"
"I like guys who kind of sporty, you know," S14 interrupted, smiling cutely.
"I am," I said and paused, using the time to wonder what on earth was I doing, "participating, I guess."
"You are? Hey that’s really cool!" S14 chirped, sounding as excited as if I had just told her that I happened to be Ben Johnson’s personal trainer.
"Yeah, I mean, like every year, this year too I would be participating of course," I said, basking in my artificial glory.
Okay, I know I wasn’t correct, not even a bit, but then, what the heck? I could have even admitted to juggling chainsaws blindfolded while balancing on a rope tied over a pond infested by crocodiles, if that meant S14 showering compliments at me.
"So, what kind of sports are you into?" S14 asked eagerly.
"Uh, I am basically into the running and sprinting stuff, you know?" I said, using some time to think.
"You mean track and field events? Like athletics?" S14 asked, sounding tad suspicious of my claims.
"Yes, exactly, athletics!" I said, visibly glad you have been reminded of the term. "So you knew the word, eh? I just thought you might not know it hence I..."
"I just happen to know a few things here and there. I am pretty new to this field you see," S14 admitted, nodding her head.
Ha! Miss. Pretty-New-To-This-Field... You clearly have no idea how brand new I am to the concept of running for no particular reason, I thought and smiled to myself.
"I’ve been participating for only about three years now, that too only when my last boyfriend insisted that I should."
Something seemed to have exploded in my cranium - as our Science teacher told it was also called.
Three years? Last boyfriend? I suddenly found myself in a state of acute bafflement. Which of these two dilemmas deserved greater and immediate attention?
"P-Participating for the last three years?" I asked, picking the former as it seemed less personal and more relevant to the situation at hand.
"Yes, I know I should have started off early," S14 said, "I’ve only managed to represent my school at the track event twice before we had to move here, you know?"
What does this girl eat, I couldn’t help but wonder.
"My last boyfriend was the school sports champ, and hence I said I like guys who are into sports," she said, smiling slyly.
Now, I must admit I was starting to lose my patience over this ‘my last boyfriend’ thing. If her vocabulary allowed her to think of words like ‘athletics’, why couldn’t she just replace that term with something suitable? Like say, a ‘moron’ or a ‘twerp’?
"Hmm, that’s very good. I like people who are into sports as well," I said, hesitatingly.
"Really? Who is your favorite athlete?"
"My favorite athlete?" I asked, suddenly reminded of a similar predicament that I was in previously.
Now, what was this game called? Naming the Athletes? Why couldn’t we just stick to pushing pens around the desk or drawing x and zeroes like the good old times?
"Shall I tell you my favorite athlete?" S14 hurriedly offered, as our Science teacher replaced her last two skeletal artifacts with one that seemed to have originated from the groin area.
"Please do," I said, relieved.
"I just like Marion Jones! Don’t you like Marion Jones?"
"Oh yes, me too!" I said, determined to milk the given opportunity dry, "I totally dig Marion Jones. I think he’s a wonderful athlete, what skill, what pace, what-"
"Marion's a female."
"Yeah, what female, what... what?"
"I know what you are trying to do," S14 frowned, her voice turning into something that distinctly reminded me of not completing my homework on time. She had also choosen to look away from me and at the piece of groin.
"You do? I mean, I don't really get what you-"
"You remind me of my last boyfriend, he used to speak just like you."
Okay, I might not be all Mr. Clean here but I certainly didn’t deserve to be compared to that ‘my-last-boyfriend’ specimen. While S14 kept whispering to herself, I imagined beating the crap out of that jerk with the groin bone or the pelvic girdle as I soon learnt it was called.
"Each of you are the same, I should have know this before, I am a fool to think that you could be different, but no, you all are-"
"S14... S14..." I had to interrupt her, "I really can’t hear or understand what you are trying to say, could you please be a little audible?"
"I am saying I don’t want to talk to you. You must be a big Carl Lewis or a Ben Johnson fan but that does not mean you make fun of Marion," S14 hissed.
Fantastic... With very little effort, I had managed to hurt her feminist instincts.
Now what?
(To be continued in the next post...)
10/16/09
Happy Diwali
As the Festival of Lights shines upon us...
nights looks brighter... smiles look fuller...
dreams look nearer... friends become dearer...
houses are cleaned... walls are painted...
goods make way for those... that seem to have tainted...
feet are touched... hands are shaken...
what's important is remembered... what's not is foresaken...
lamps are lit... hymns are read...
eyes are closed... and prayers are said...
hands are joined... heads are bent...
in name of the Almighty... some time is spent...
skies brighten, shine and glimmer...
as fireworks burst... flutter and shimmer...
each is joyous... for one common reason...
the reason is nothing but a mere change of season...
but as mere it may seem the transition is needed...
as it teaches a lesson.. that must always be heeded...
as this festival brings along a refreshing change of weather...
change is inevitable... for the bad or worse, the good or better
nights looks brighter... smiles look fuller...
dreams look nearer... friends become dearer...
houses are cleaned... walls are painted...
goods make way for those... that seem to have tainted...
feet are touched... hands are shaken...
what's important is remembered... what's not is foresaken...
lamps are lit... hymns are read...
eyes are closed... and prayers are said...
hands are joined... heads are bent...
in name of the Almighty... some time is spent...
skies brighten, shine and glimmer...
as fireworks burst... flutter and shimmer...
each is joyous... for one common reason...
the reason is nothing but a mere change of season...
but as mere it may seem the transition is needed...
as it teaches a lesson.. that must always be heeded...
as this festival brings along a refreshing change of weather...
change is inevitable... for the bad or worse, the good or better
5/27/09
Capital of Canada
Sometimes, life puts us in situations which demand quick answers to questions that are commonly believed to hold no particular significance in the real world. Questions which have long surpassed the boundaries of human interest and can now be found languishing in the forgotten pages of a forgotten encyclopedia or a yesteryear notebook of a yesteryear’s quizmaster.
Questions which were perhaps intriguing when invented but slowly lost its trivial content due to the lack of appropriate answers. Questions, to state a few would be like Andrew Symonds’s mental being, Michael Jackson’s physical being, the natural vegetation in the Kalahari Desert, the GDP of Mozambique or say, the capital of Canada.
Though I can’t deny my mood was on par with that of a fully fed infant when our class teacher implemented the ‘Buddy’ system in our batch, it brought along a different kind of a problem that I could have lived without… Okay, flash back time.
Before we delve any deeper into the reason of my happiness and the immediate problem, let me give you a background of what exactly happened.
Standard Seven saw the advent of a path breaking concept in the field of school teaching. Buddy System, as it was called, revolved around the idea of clubbing an academically weak student with an unreasonably bright one and then hoping that the former learns something from the former and not vice versa.
Basically, it was like one of those scientific experiments where you mate a donkey and a mare, hoping to get a smart looking donkey that could run fast rather than a dumb looking horse that kicks and acts retarded. Thus, keeping a similar motive in mind, our teacher began announcing the new set of pairs that would be sharing a desk for the next eight months or so.
By the time my number came (it always came pretty late) I could see I was left with only a couple of options. If my calculations were correct (they normally never were), I was seconds away from being told to sit next to C2H3O8 (the bomb guy) or… S14, the girl in pink (who had now become ‘the girl in brownish off-white’, thanks to our uniform).
Although I expertly maintained a very calm and unaffected composure on the exterior, my interiors were hopping mad with anticipation. Like a pendulum with suicidal tendencies, my heart oscillated precariously from one side of the ribcage to another, or at least it felt like it did.
It had all boiled down to the final seconds. I was heart beats away from knowing the outcome – Canadian bombshell or nerdy, Indian bomb maker.
“And, S14 will now sit with…,” our teacher announced, causing me to crack the pencil I had held on to.
What followed next was this - Class Seven, Division B, row Second and bench Four – an uninteresting piece of school realty suddenly transformed into perhaps the hottest property on Earth.
The primary reason behind this miraculous act was the fact that this address, formerly owned by me… now co-belonged to S14, for a healthy part of that academic year.
So, there was I… with S14 sitting next to me and the whole class watching us like one might watch a special screening of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.
To add some more icing on the heavily iced cake, our teacher announced that our Hindi professor had met a bicycle accident and will be absent for the day. This news was worth celebrating twice – because 1) the professor was way due from meeting a well deserved accident and 2) we now had the next lecture off.
"Hi, I am Vishal," I said, welcoming her to the desk.
“Teacher says that you very weak in Math,” S14 said, choosing the sentence as her opening line.
“Uh, did she?” I asked, reacting like a Bollywood composer being accused of lifting music from English numbers.
“Yeah, she said that you had problems with other subjects too, but Math was something else,” she added matter-of-factly.
“Looks like we have the Hindi lecture off!” I said, feeling a desperate need to change the topic.
“Yeah, sir has met an accident,” she said with a confusingly saddened face.
“So, do you wanna… play a game or something?” I suggested hesitantly, cautioned by her reaction.
“Yeah, let’s play a game!” she declared, her face brightening instantly. "Let’s play Naming the Capitals!"
"Naming the what?" I asked, not sure if there was a game by that name.
"Naming the Capitals! Its very simple,” she assured, preparing to explain the rules. “Look, I will give you a country and you need to name its capital. If you name it correctly, you get a point. Then on my turn, you give a country and I try to name it, simple!”
That can’t be tough, I thought. How many countries were on this planet anyways?
“Okay, so let me begin with an easy one,” she said, taking charge of the situation. “Name the capital of… Canada!”
“Capital of Canada?” I asked, sounding worried. “Like the one where you’ve come from?”
"Yeah! Let me give you a hint," she offered, understanding my plight. "It falls in the south eastern part of the country!"
Now what kind of a hint was that? She could have just given me the latitudes and longitudes instead, or perhaps just hand me an altas.
"Ah, the south eastern part?" I said with an enlightened look on my face. "You mean the real south eastern part or the one which kind of lies in the… north?”
“The real south eastern part!” she said with a cute little chuckle, apparently finding my query exceptionally comical. “Okay, you don’t have the whole day for this, do you say pass?”
I passed.
“It’s Ottawa!” she divulged, “you get a zero and I get one point!”
For a moment or two, I thought I was missing something from the rules. When was I told that she would get a point if I passed? However, considering the fact that I was that wired to lose this game and it seemed to have brought S14 in a cheery mood, I decided not to make any fuss about it.
“Ah, okay… so, my turn to ask now?” I asked.
“No! We need to record the scores before we proceed,” she said, stating the point with all the seriousness it deserved. “Do you have a rough page? I don’t like tearing pages from my rough book.”
I nodded and handed a piece of paper, tearing it from appeared to be my Composition notebook.
“Okay, so S gets one and V gets a zero!” she proclaimed, jotting down the score. “Now, your turn…”
The break soon ended and so did our game. Our final scorecard read ‘S – 5 / V- 0’, leaving me with the capitals of Uruguay, Swaziland, Romania and Philippines in addition to that of Canada.
However, as I stared at the peice of paper on my way back home, it wasn't this abysmal score or the names of the places that occupied my mind, but it was the smile on S14's face, that appeared everytime I passed my turn...
Questions which were perhaps intriguing when invented but slowly lost its trivial content due to the lack of appropriate answers. Questions, to state a few would be like Andrew Symonds’s mental being, Michael Jackson’s physical being, the natural vegetation in the Kalahari Desert, the GDP of Mozambique or say, the capital of Canada.
Though I can’t deny my mood was on par with that of a fully fed infant when our class teacher implemented the ‘Buddy’ system in our batch, it brought along a different kind of a problem that I could have lived without… Okay, flash back time.
Before we delve any deeper into the reason of my happiness and the immediate problem, let me give you a background of what exactly happened.
Standard Seven saw the advent of a path breaking concept in the field of school teaching. Buddy System, as it was called, revolved around the idea of clubbing an academically weak student with an unreasonably bright one and then hoping that the former learns something from the former and not vice versa.
Basically, it was like one of those scientific experiments where you mate a donkey and a mare, hoping to get a smart looking donkey that could run fast rather than a dumb looking horse that kicks and acts retarded. Thus, keeping a similar motive in mind, our teacher began announcing the new set of pairs that would be sharing a desk for the next eight months or so.
By the time my number came (it always came pretty late) I could see I was left with only a couple of options. If my calculations were correct (they normally never were), I was seconds away from being told to sit next to C2H3O8 (the bomb guy) or… S14, the girl in pink (who had now become ‘the girl in brownish off-white’, thanks to our uniform).
Although I expertly maintained a very calm and unaffected composure on the exterior, my interiors were hopping mad with anticipation. Like a pendulum with suicidal tendencies, my heart oscillated precariously from one side of the ribcage to another, or at least it felt like it did.
It had all boiled down to the final seconds. I was heart beats away from knowing the outcome – Canadian bombshell or nerdy, Indian bomb maker.
“And, S14 will now sit with…,” our teacher announced, causing me to crack the pencil I had held on to.
What followed next was this - Class Seven, Division B, row Second and bench Four – an uninteresting piece of school realty suddenly transformed into perhaps the hottest property on Earth.
The primary reason behind this miraculous act was the fact that this address, formerly owned by me… now co-belonged to S14, for a healthy part of that academic year.
So, there was I… with S14 sitting next to me and the whole class watching us like one might watch a special screening of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.
To add some more icing on the heavily iced cake, our teacher announced that our Hindi professor had met a bicycle accident and will be absent for the day. This news was worth celebrating twice – because 1) the professor was way due from meeting a well deserved accident and 2) we now had the next lecture off.
"Hi, I am Vishal," I said, welcoming her to the desk.
“Teacher says that you very weak in Math,” S14 said, choosing the sentence as her opening line.
“Uh, did she?” I asked, reacting like a Bollywood composer being accused of lifting music from English numbers.
“Yeah, she said that you had problems with other subjects too, but Math was something else,” she added matter-of-factly.
“Looks like we have the Hindi lecture off!” I said, feeling a desperate need to change the topic.
“Yeah, sir has met an accident,” she said with a confusingly saddened face.
“So, do you wanna… play a game or something?” I suggested hesitantly, cautioned by her reaction.
“Yeah, let’s play a game!” she declared, her face brightening instantly. "Let’s play Naming the Capitals!"
"Naming the what?" I asked, not sure if there was a game by that name.
"Naming the Capitals! Its very simple,” she assured, preparing to explain the rules. “Look, I will give you a country and you need to name its capital. If you name it correctly, you get a point. Then on my turn, you give a country and I try to name it, simple!”
That can’t be tough, I thought. How many countries were on this planet anyways?
“Okay, so let me begin with an easy one,” she said, taking charge of the situation. “Name the capital of… Canada!”
“Capital of Canada?” I asked, sounding worried. “Like the one where you’ve come from?”
"Yeah! Let me give you a hint," she offered, understanding my plight. "It falls in the south eastern part of the country!"
Now what kind of a hint was that? She could have just given me the latitudes and longitudes instead, or perhaps just hand me an altas.
"Ah, the south eastern part?" I said with an enlightened look on my face. "You mean the real south eastern part or the one which kind of lies in the… north?”
“The real south eastern part!” she said with a cute little chuckle, apparently finding my query exceptionally comical. “Okay, you don’t have the whole day for this, do you say pass?”
I passed.
“It’s Ottawa!” she divulged, “you get a zero and I get one point!”
For a moment or two, I thought I was missing something from the rules. When was I told that she would get a point if I passed? However, considering the fact that I was that wired to lose this game and it seemed to have brought S14 in a cheery mood, I decided not to make any fuss about it.
“Ah, okay… so, my turn to ask now?” I asked.
“No! We need to record the scores before we proceed,” she said, stating the point with all the seriousness it deserved. “Do you have a rough page? I don’t like tearing pages from my rough book.”
I nodded and handed a piece of paper, tearing it from appeared to be my Composition notebook.
“Okay, so S gets one and V gets a zero!” she proclaimed, jotting down the score. “Now, your turn…”
The break soon ended and so did our game. Our final scorecard read ‘S – 5 / V- 0’, leaving me with the capitals of Uruguay, Swaziland, Romania and Philippines in addition to that of Canada.
However, as I stared at the peice of paper on my way back home, it wasn't this abysmal score or the names of the places that occupied my mind, but it was the smile on S14's face, that appeared everytime I passed my turn...
5/17/09
Joining the Dots
Survival, as most of you would agree, is by far the strongest instinct of any human being… and for who haven’t had the opportunity to test their instinct to survive, I recommend you enrol yourself to my school lectures for a year.
Lectures, as self-explanatory as the word is, were a matter of enduring rather than attending in school, with of course a few possible exceptions like the times spent with S22H25L. Going by the aesthetical appeal of my classroom and the people who ran the show, one needn’t be an Einstein to figure out that seconds spent outside the classroom felt like light-years when spent inside it, especially if it had to be done in a full bladder situation.
Things only graduated from bad to worse by the time we trudged into the post-lunch sessions. Ask any normal school-going chap and he will tell you that food and lectures is easily the most screwed up combination ever invented.
It was during these difficult hours when lectures got the better of our tolerance levels and dozing off was not a sensible thing to do (especially if it happened to be the Hindi lecture), we engaged ourselves into some ingeniously devised ‘activities’ that promised maximum output with minimum input. These games, though not Olympics material, were good enough to kill a good amount of lecture time with little or no consequences.
A fitting example of which would be Pen Fight which was very popular amongst all divisions. Developed on the grounds of a cock fight, this one had all the intensity and excitement of the real version, with the minor replacement of a live cock with an ink pen.
For those who couldn’t bear the sight of their pens being trashed around the desk or wished to have fun and yet appear to be insanely engrossed in his or her text book, we had the game of Book Cricket. A work of pure genius, this one basically involved choosing a team of 11 players and scoring as many runs in an innings using nothing but a considerably large sized textbook. The ‘shot’ here was turning the pages of the book and the ‘runs’ were the digits that appeared in the unit’s place for each shot. On occasions when that turned out to be a zero, you had your man walking back to the pavilion.
I have many fond memories associated with this game... but the one that deserves a mention in this post is that eventful History inning when my Venkatapathy Raju thumped 5 sixes in an Alan Donald over, before my opponent realised that I had marked the pages which ended with the digit 6. Some things always look fishy, even in Book Cricket.
However, despite all these and a dozen more, the one that was my personal favourite was called as Joining the Dots. This game had the excitement of the Pen Fight minus the damages and the safety of Book Cricket minus the scope for cheating.
The rules of play were fairly simple as well. As a prerequisite, you had to fill a page with uniformly spaced dots that ran from top to bottom and left to right. You then took alternate turns in connecting two dots with a segment. When one managed to create a box by closing the 4th side of it, he would score a point and take another turn. The one who gets the highest number of boxes wins. Easy pleasey!
As I now look back at those days, I realise that life is after all, an exaggerated game of Joining the Dots. Each event that we are a part of is nothing but a segment drawn towards making a box – hitting a target, achieving a goal, being successful, realising a dream. The arrival of the Canadian sisters into my class only strengthens this notion.
Back in the summer of 1996, it had only been a calendar month since the Canadian sisters had joined our class but to me, it felt like it was a connection that was made long time ago. Like segments waiting to be joined… like a box waiting to be made.
Consider this - Of all countries in the world, their family had to move to India. Of all cities in India, they had to come to Bombay. Of all schools in Bombay, the two had to get admission in the one I happened to study. Of all classes in my school, they had to turn up in my class. Each segment drawn with the intention of achieving the target…
But was them just ending up in my class good enough? Was that the ultimate goal?
Perhaps not… perhaps fate had another turn to be taken… another segment waiting to be drawn.
This wait seemed to have ended the day our teacher introduced the ‘Buddy System’ to us… Well, more on that in the next post … :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
