A Humpty Dumpty game ;)

It started with a loud thud! A crashing touchdown and a bruised knee. Which, by the way, still hurts. Im talking about my first badminton game in say nine years. It was painful, embarassing, but a hell of a lot of fun. I hadnt played the game since say, 8th standard. Back then, it used to be those amazing evenings with papa, playing in the park, until mom tired her vocal cords out calling us for dinner, or until it became virtually impossible for us to see the shuttle in the dark. Or sometimes when…..Oh wait, hey, I shouldn’t be getting into flashback right now, I was here to talk about the game last morning.

Ahem, okay… Well, for a long time I had been wanting to start playing again. Perhaps because I had ample time to spare, or rather because I really needed a fun way to effectively workout, for the good old conventional strategies like morning walk or jogging werent working for me (I just could not wake up;) But most importantly, it was because I loved the game so much, it had so many happy memories of it, and I wanted to feel like that little girl by the side of papa, all over again.

Of course, it wasn’t papa this time, it was my better half, hubby dear by my side. Oh wait, no. Not by my side, opposite me. For a long time, we had been anticipating to buy the rackets in the first place. And when they finally arrived, hung on he wall for so long, never could be put to proper use, for the same reason…I just could not wake up! And evenings are no time to play, the court is too crowded, and im too occupied too. So finally, at last, after weeks of punching down the alarm and going back to sleep… the blessed morning came. I woke up in time…at last. So we headed to the sports club in the campus.

It was my first visit there, and a mighty good place it is I’d say, considering this town. Has courts for all sorts of sport, and damn clean too. So we stepped in the badminton court and I served first. It was a fine serve. My opponent (wait, I like calling my husband that ;) flipped the shuttle back and as I tried attempting my first strike, fell face front, and hurt my knee. Oops… awkward moment. I do not know what happened. You know, the amazing thing about taking a fall is, the first thing you care about, isnt where you got hurt. Its, ‘oh my gosh, who saw that.’ And well, quite a few people saw me. So alright, easy, breath. Say to yourself, its okay, nothing happened, im good, and get on with the game. And so I did. We went on to play a fairly decent game. He too hadnt played in a long time so we were on equal progress report. We decided to play for fun and not scoreboard it. We played for an hour and yes, it was an exhilerating one hour. We had so much fun, I dint wanna come back. But he said I better not overdo my muscles on the first day, and we came back.

So I had finally broken the curse of the sleep monster and woke up early. But would I be able to keep up. Would I wake up the next day. Well yes, that next day was today, and I did wake up. Yeah baby….i was all set for a new game…yeppie. Although my knee advised me otherwise, I knew that by abiding, I would only spoil it more. So I gathered myself together, pulled up my socks and grabbed my armour…ahem, my racket, and headed for a new game. Now im pretty sure I can keep up this groove. Cuz im loving it. Albeit it’s a new beginning and right now every muscle in my right arm hurts like hell, because of a fresh exertion, and the knee to add to it. But I know, getting them accustomed to this, is the only way out of this.

And the whole feeling of being in the court, of smashing the shuttle, of missing a shot, of heading right into the net or answering that seemingly impossible attack, by fluke, it all feels amazing. Yeah so what if I had a Humpty Dumpty moment, at least it took me back to the days of loving Humpty Dumpty. The days of murmuring twilights in the old home, of playing in the park by papa’s side, learning his shots, ignoring mom’s calls for dinner or homework. Of shuttles getting stuck up in trees and us jumping up and down with our rackets to bring it down. Feeling on top of the world if i got one shot better than dad, scuffling with my brother to get turns with dad, simply being daddy’s little girl. Oh how I miss those days. And though playing now is such an awesome feeling, it does make me miss being with dad, in that old home, bangalore right now.
Miss u papa…