I had attended a Badminton summer camp when I was in school. That was my first real introduction to the game. I didn't learn much of it in those two months. Nor did I take an instant liking to it. There was nothing special about it that really jumped at me.
The game was almost forgotten, till I resumed playing it during the summer break after the board exams. The reason the game and I were united again was because of the love my friends shared for it. Also we had the access to indoor badminton courts which made things easier. We played doubles. Mostly. The matches were close. Probably because we all were equally bad at it. At least to begin with. The competitiveness proved to be a motivator. And so the affair with the game began. Every vacation for nearly seven years, it became our favourite sport. After cricket. The more we played, the better we got at it. In equal measure. All of us. Still by most standards our game was average generally to above average on some days. That's the thing with Badminton. You can't become very good at it if you play only doubles. Yet nobody was really playing it to get better at it. Winning was important. But when you are almost evenly matched, winning is a matter of one or two bad or good shots here and there. So nobody was really needed to be very good. You just had to be good enough.
MBA happened a couple of years back. And so for the longest period I didn't play badminton like I was used to. The sport was never indispensable and was never really missed. In April when I came back, done with my two years in exile, there was suddenly a lot of free time. I needed to play. Some sport. Playing is essential to me. And with only one playing partner this time, badminton become the sport of choice. So for five days of the week for the last one and a half month we have been at it. Playing the game. For one hour at least. Sometimes more. Singles. And the game has grown on me like never before.
The personal game has vastly improved in the period. The technique is better. Most importantly the involvement mentally in the game is far greater. Physically it always was. Now I play it in my mind. There is a serious urge to improve. With each day. Each match. Each rally. Each point. Each win. Each loss. Winning is still important. But in the mind winning better each time is more important. A bad shot, rankles. A poor method of execution, irks. So the mind keeps working on it. Urging the body to follow.
There are matches which I lose before they begin. In my mind I don't want to win them. When Agassi wrote about exactly the same thing in Open, I almost found it hard to believe. Why would you not want to win? But now I know. Then there is fatigue. Which again you can let happen to you, only if you think about it. Close matches again don't need a moment of brilliance. They need absence of fear. Of losing. Cliched as all this might be, the realization after having experienced it, makes it an unforgettable learning.
Most things I do, I end up becoming a student of. Of sport, I most definitely am. In it, also are there, most of my lessons for life. With the vacation now extended by at least a month, more teaching awaits me. On the badminton court.
Reminds me of Kipling's famous line, which CLR James used as the theme of his famous book, 'Beyond a Boundary'. Putting it contextually, 'What do they know of badminton, who only badminton know'.
