I have been feeling very demotivated these days. Nothing much is really happening around me these days. Getting up from bed has become a herculean task these days, may be it has been like that since I could remember. But then evenings too have become sluggish, I feels like the clock stop ticking after 3pm. Moreover winter cold is already here and its really frustrating to walk like a zombie back home from office. I start to pick up an argument over office communicator too. The overall atmosphere I find is not going really well. I have become like a land mine, just waiting for somebody to "get in touch" and boom!. Somebody asked me last day "hey whats you problem", may be I really have some problem, may be the cold is taking its effect. I don't know.
To vent out my frustration I usually go to the office club and play some badminton. Not that I am really good at it but I love to play badminton or "shuttle" as we call it. When I see the game I think "oh this is easy I could play it better", but I don't know why when I am at the court I find the opponent is playing it better. The Japanese guys who come to the club are really good at the game. I go to game to get a little "motivation" and boost some "self confidence" but these guys smash out whatever little bit of it left in me. More frustrating is that when we play doubles the team in which I am playing mostly lose. Damn you know how embarrassing it is. Singles game at least I manage to cover it myself but doubles means somebody else know about my bad game.
I usually blame the racket for my bad game, even though the bat is bad I know I am no better. I have been looking around to buy a nice racket and my eyes were on a branded used one at the nearby used stores. Even though used, its priced really high and every week I drop at the shop to check it out. This went on for two months or so and the shop keeper started giving a weird smile when ever he sees me. It like "dude are you really going to buy that". But last week I found that racket with a new priced down tag. I thought this is it, even-though the amount I have to pay is not cheap I made up my mind to buy it. Lets see if the racket is really the culprit for my bad game.
Finally the D day has come and here I am standing tall, wearing shorts in a cold winter. Most others were in track pants. But the cold seeping into my thin sportswear was not bothering me but the game I was about to play was. I started with the warm up session, drive, drop, high clear, smash, nets. Sometime I find these guys use up the entire time at club for warming up itself and don't play the real game. By the time the warm up session is over and when they call me for a game I will be drained of every bit of the badminton left in me. So I decided not to get trapped in to the Japanese strategy and save some energy. The warm up session I wound up quickly and I joined a game. So technically I should play better with my new "branded" racket. The game started and first three points was on my side. But soon we started losing. After every terrific shot the other side guy will bow and thank me for the point. I just couldn't do anything to stop it. Soon the game ended in 16-21. I played another couple of game and the result was same. I had to catch my last bus home at 9.30pm. The time was 9.00 and I went up-to the court to play one last game for the day. I kept saying in my mind, I have to win it or go wounded for the rest of the week.
The game started. My partner in that particular game was really good and was covering me up really well. The game started with a 0-5 and getting the first point itself was a real tough job. Soon my side managed to catch up at 8-8 with a couple of points generating from my bat. The game went on and my partner was shouting to step back from net as I was standing very close to it. The closer we are to net the shorter the time we get to react to the return. My specialty is cross net drop which I pull out really good most cases. But repeating the same shot made easier for the opponent team to predict my return. Soon we were are 19-20. One more point and my side will lose yet again. Other side served and the rally went on for few seconds and finally came in the smashing range of my partner and he finished it off in grace and now we were at 20-20. So to win we have to take two straight points. The first of it the other side took but the second one we managed to take through a lucky net touch drop. We again took one more point and here I am one point away from a victory which I needed real bad. My partner served the shuttle and I was managing back court. After the second exchange the shuttle came over to me in a high clear shot. I did a cross court drop and was returned to me to the other side of court. I ran and took it somehow again with a high clear. I think they were purposely targeting me. Damn I am not that bad player you son of badminton. The shuttle meanwhile as full on me and my partner almost turned back and was just watching me play. I again made a drop shot from back court and the opponent lifted it back to me. That shuttle went up the sky like a long range projectile and well with in the smashing range for me. I thought this is it son! Scene change -motion blur, slow motion..the shuttle was dropping at me and my partner was shouting something..may be like "run forest runnnnn". Absolute silence and I jumped by gathering all my energy- bend back like a bow and "Smaaaaash". Shuttle went cross court, out of reach for both of the opponent players and landed just inside the side line. Yessss I won..victory..here i come again. Million kisses all around..
While I walked home I was no more zombie that night. Damn good game it was. The next day I snoozed the alarm 10 times and then got up, had to miss the bath to catch the bus at 9.am, however I know I will miss it..damn..life's so boring :)
