Game..Set..Match

I don’t like waking up early in the morning but for the past 3 months or so I am up early on Sundays’ to catch up with some tennis practice. The Sunday mornings now start off with around 2 hours of play and then breakfast at Vaishali*. But, today my cell battery died off n the alarm failed to wake me up. Last Sunday an incident took place which I wanted to share but didn’t get time to write it down.

Let me start off frm the very start. It has been around 1 year (1 yr n 4 days to be precise) in this software/IT industry. Apart from the salary, I haven’t still figured out what this industry has given me till date. But it has taken a lot of things away from me and one of the main things is my daily 2 hrs dose of playing. Earlier I used to play some game or go jogging on the nearby hills. But, nowadays don’t get to go home early enough to be on the ground. Many of my frnds also experienced this and frm there came up the idea to play tennis atleast every Sunday morning.

We were quite sure tht it would be difficult to keep our balls within the court after being out of practice (tennis balls u pervert!) but were not aware tht the most painful task will be finding a court to play. ALL courts in Pune have been booked for ALL the coming Sundays’ for the whole year. So the only court tht was available was the one near MIT college, the same one where I used to take training a few years back. But it is now in a horrible state coz the owner has stopped coaching (I don’t know why he used to coach with the income he already had/still has**). Then one of the grp members came up with the idea to play on the court of a residential building which is in the vicinity.

The high-rise apartment which we chose has around 12-14 wings of buildings n each wing having around 40 homes. Visitors are not allowed to use any of the facilities and yet we went on to give a try if we could go n play there. The first time the security guards had tried to stop us at the gate but we quickly made a dash inside on the bikes and no one asked us anything within the premises. The best (for visitors like us) and worst (for residents) thing is tht being in such a huge complex ppl don’t know who is staying in the adjacent house. From tht Sunday we have been playing there and now sometimes even the security guard throws a salaam (salutes) at us when we enter the building.

Tht was indeed a long start n after boring u for 3 paragraphs I will now come to the incident :)). We were busy playing last Sunday and Kunal was sitting (we are 5 guys) on a bench (a new addition near the court tht day) when an elderly gentleman walked into the gate (the court has a small entry gate too). All of us thought tht this man has identified us as outsiders and will soon rebuke us for playing there. The gentleman came n sat besides Kunal n ..

Man: Gud morning!

Kunal: ehhh… Hello Uncle!
Man: Isn’t this bench a gud thing done this week

Kunal: Yeah! We were just talking ‘bout tht. It is one of the better things to happen in our society this week.

(as if we stay there n wait for gud things to happen in the society)
Man: I used to see u guys playing and thought tht there shld be a bench too so tht u don’t have to stand.
Kunal: (innocent smile) Tht was so thoughtful of you.
Man: After u all finish playing can u go to the society office n tell them tht due to Mr. (his name)’s efforts we got a bench to sit on.
(as if being on bench in company was not enough)
Kunal: Yes, sure.
Man: I m also standing for our society’s Secretary post election next month. I hope all ur families will vote for me.
(making us sit he will stand for sure)
Kunal: Of course! No doubt in it.
(will bring more frnds to vote if u want)

Sensing this we all showed him a thumbs-up sign from the court and the man beamed as if he just won a landslide victory in the elections. We do hope he wins so tht we have a strong backing to continue playing there.

Frankly speaking sometimes I do feel a pang of guilt for barging into the restricted premises n sometimes even fear at the thought of being caught but still the wish to play and seeing the cutie watching frm the 3rd floor of ‘H’ wing is wht makes me wake up early every Sunday and pick up my racquet.

* Since it is ‘at’ and not ‘with’ it’s a food-joint n not the gal frm my school

** My coach has leased the land where this same hotel Vaishali stands on and along with tht the land covering Rupali Hotel and the adjacent Iceberg ice-cream parlour too. It is like owning hens laying a golden egg everyday n no scare of bird-flu either coz u don’t kill the hen nor eat the egg.