Badminton Woes

Oh! not again !!

Since my son missed his school bus today, I had to drop him. Thus I had to reshuffle my morning activities. Then decided to avoid gym.

Swimming went fine and I was happy about it. As soon as I reached home, I got a call from my gym trainer asking me to come to play badminton. I felt sooo happy again. He said the guy who gave me disappointment is sitting there alone since nobody is there to play. I thought it’s a chance, if its singles, I even had a chance to show him that I too can play badminton... So I ran to club again…and what was the scene there?

He was playing with his friend, as usual, and there were 4 of them, including a kid. I did not see them avoiding the kid since he don’t know the rules or hitting here and there. I asked one of them,

“then why did he (trainer) say nobody is there to play?”
“yes, we were looking for somebody to play with”

I waited for another 5 minutes and then went up to meet the trainer guy and told him, that am going back home. He is a nice guy and even he too felt it bad.

When I left the court, one of them asked:

“you are not playing?”
“Nope, I am going”
“why?”
“I just am going”

And the other guy avoided an eye contact with me, just like yesterday…

In our club, badminton court is the only place which already gave so many disappointments , hurts, heated talks etc , so far. There were lots of mails flowing in our forum complaining about the attitude of people coming there to play. They won’t give others a chance. Once a guy wrote that even though he waited for 30-45 minutes, he could not play…he wasn’t worried about it, but what hurt him was the ‘smile of those guys’ at him.

I am better put. I am not hurt that way, they did not laugh at me. Good ….else I would have asked, “why are you laughing?” And that might spoil the present friendly relationship with them.

Anyway, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling….. This apartment complex has about 1000 apartments. And there is only one badminton court…may be I need to get used to such situations…

But what is community living, if we can’t care and share for a few people around us? It looks like these days people are becoming more and more selfish and arrogant.

(That reminds me another incident. The other day I was drinking a tender coconut, on the road side. I parked my car, came out and had the coconut. Another car came driven by a lady and a lady sitting with her. She just sat in the car and asked for two tender coconut. The seller gave it. Since its summer, there was rush. When that lady finished drinking, she waited for him to collect the empty ones. He was bit busy, and by that time she threw it on the road. Then she started honking asking him to collect the money, he was busy giving coconuts to those who were waiting. So, she took the car further…but I liked that guy’s expression. He just smiled at them and said “ok, you go….” …she did not dare to do that, anyway)

Dear Badminton, is it coz of these reasons your name starts like this: BADminton? Well, I still love this game (play and not to watch) and whenever I get a chance, I will play it….

Impossible is nothing!

(Not talking about me, but God..hehehe)


2-Jun-08

Can same thing provide us with happiness and sadness?

While checking out a sports channel, I happened to watch a tennis match between Sharapova and Safina. The match is going on when am writing this. While serving, I saw both of them hit the net, many times. Well they are world class players and still? This took me back to my last weekends…

I like tennis, but I never played it. I don’t know the rules of it too. But what I believe is, one day, I will play tennis. Same with badminton. I have never played badminton in a proper way, in a court. I have a racquet and we play inside our small hall, mostly playing the underarm shots, just for time pass. Our apartment complex has a badminton court and its always full. That is the next most popular place (and most popular game) in the club after gym. But I always wished to play in that court.

I got acquainted with a couple of people in the gym and they used to play badminton. I had expressed my interest in playing badminton to one of those guys and he said:

“Its ‘our boys’ who are playing in the morning, you can join us”

I was so happy but I said:

“but I don’t know how to play…I never played in a court”

“its ok, we too are not good players, you can join us”

......When I went to gym, he was sitting there and asked me:

“You wanted to play badminton, right? Then go and get your racquet” I cut my gym and rushed home to get my racquet. But when I came back, I saw him standing at the entrance of the club and he said:

“We can not play today. Two of them are playing, two are waiting and then some kids too”

I got really disappointed. I called up the gym trainer and he asked me to come to gym. I started my workouts…these days, I don’t do cardio since I swim. But I went to treadmill and ran very fast to throw away my disappointment.

Trainer’s duty was over and he said there are only a few kids in the court and hence we will go and play badminton. I saw two kids playing singles. Trainer said we will join them but I said, let them play singles, and we will also play singles, anyway the court can accommodate 4…

I was so happy to be there in a real professional court with a racquet in my hand. And we started playing and then, from the face expression and smile on the trainer’s face (whenever I scored) I realized that, I am good at it, as a beginner…

Next day, when I went to gym, I carried the racquets (2) with me. I saw my acquaintance playing with his friend (who is also an acquaintance of mine). But I did not join them but went to gym. When I started workouts, he called me and asked me to join them. They were playing doubles. I replaced my ‘closest’ acquaintance and told all of them that I am new to it and I don’t know the rules.

Nobody explained to me what the rules are and or how to begin. Me not knowing the rules became a little problem to them, since they were play playing a real game and not for fun. Nobody showed any interest in explaining anything to me. After sometime, I read their faces and minds and told them:

“Ok, you carry on”..and then my ‘friend’ told: “ you watch it for a while”

I watched for sometime and then decided not to waste my time and then went back home. I really felt bad. When I was waiting to say bye, one of them avoided eye contact with me and just avoided me.

Well, just one month, if I play for just one month, I will beat at least 50% of those who are already playing there. Nobody comes in this world learning every rule of the game. Nobody by-heart some rules for nothing. When we are into it, we learn it. If I ask them about the fighting rules in a Kumite (karate sparring/fighting), they can’t answer, but I can …not coz I am great, but just coz I was into it for sometime. Its not at all a big deal. And as far as badminton is concerned, it looked very simple to me and I had the reflux.

And if we are impatient, it is always better not to invite others to join us and don’t offer our help to teach somebody something. Coz, others will simply get hurt. I don’t know about others, but (now) I enjoy being in the swimming pool and giving some tips to those who are new to it (and I love to get tips from better swimmers)

But today evening, it was a different story. I called up the trainer to know whether we can play badminton again and he said yes. He is a guy who is willing to teach. I rushed there with two racquets and what I saw is, a coaching camp for kids going on! I really got disappointed. But then comes the Billiards/Pool trainer guy in the form of God….by nature, I like active games and not lazy ones. So, I wasn’t much interested in Pool. But in that situation, even pool was OK for me. I have never played that too. No idea about how to hold the cue stick….

He gave me an idea about it and then today I played three games of Pool. I won one and lost two….

(Well well well….World No.1 Sharapova lost to Safina, at the end)