I'm a good sport

"When did you ever play badminton? Do you know which end of the racket to hold?"

Yours truly is a self professed spectator. But I must have professed a lot if my mother couldn't remember my badminton phase.Sure,I'm at my element in a cheering squad and far away from the field. But that doesn't mean that I never ventured into it. I distinctly remember entering a hopping race and walking half way through during my second standard. And I also remember falling on my behind while trying to throw a javelin (don't even think of asking how),thankfully my behind is very well padded. But seriously, I did take part in sports- I had no choice. We had a games period and a teacher who used to hound us into playing.

I'm a peaceful soul and therefore took up the path of least resistance. I tried my hand at basketball. But the small problem of negligible height and no aim was a slight impediment. So I resorted to running all around the court yelling like banshee- that way everyone thought you were playing. However, this gambit turned out to be a little tiring- not to mention annoying to the fellow players who were actually playing (losers).

Hence, I had to shift base. Me, being the smart genius that I am (yes,you should get your autographs before-hand), took up a sport that seemed to be the one with least exertion necessary-badminton. A simple game it seemed to me. All you needed to do was thwack the cock (hmm...may be it was the first signs of the radical feminist I'd become.)It was so much fun I actually got interested in the thing. (No, no, not enough to go look at rules or anything[what do you think I am? Hard working?]) It got so much so that we of the Badminton Enthusiasts Association used to have earth shaking fights with the boys over the rackets.(It was not for nothing I was called "bulldozer" in my younger days.) For you see, our school was rather Gandhian in it's approach. It believed in training students in making do with whatever was available. Sometimes even less. Hence it was not an unusual sight to see shuttle enthusiasts playing with frayed rackets and, as time progressed and rackets grew stringless, tennis rackets.I didn't know this actually made a difference, until I went to Kodaikanal with the redoubtable Charlie.

And we come to the incident that actually triggerred this pile of dingo's kidney(Term,courtesy Gunther). In the picturesque locale of Kodaikanal,'mountain princess', I was obliged once again to pick up a badminton racket.It was like going back home! The same frustrated looks when I missed, the same jokes when I'd flail the racket like a maniac and hit thin air, the same guffaws at my service... sigh... I wonder why I stopped playing. :D

Two, three rounds of the game and I was actually getting a hang of it. Which is when Charlie's sibling asked me whether I'd ever played tennis looking at the way I swung the poor instrument in my hands. And at the end of the 6th match, I actually won! Needing someone to boast about this feat to I called my mother. And then we know what she said.

Ah well,I may not be good at sports; but I'm definitely a good sport, eh what?