Apparently about the Inter-mart basketball match.


The weather was very nervous. It kept raining distractedly and we rushed back and forth to avoid getting drenched. It finally stopped but someone sitting in front fished out an enormous golf umbrella, just in case. The rest of us wiped the chairs and sat down, expecting to enjoy ourselves.
I don’t understand the first thing about the game and occasionally burst into excited applause when the ball reached the wrong side of the court.
Go LMG!!! As an afterthought, Calcutta!!
It’s a little difficult to cheer when the two competing schools have the same name.
My learned friend who last played the game six years ago but knows everything about it nevertheless, kept commenting on the bad technique of the players. She rued having quit playing…
“I’m sure I’m better than most of them anyway.” she told me nonchalantly.
I chose to believe her.

I think I stopped listening at some point because I was afraid the girls might claw each others eyes out all because of a dirty brown sphere.
“How undignified...” I said, nodding disapprovingly, spectacles slipping off my shiny nose. It had started drizzling again.
Then things began to get interesting. The tussle on the court moved closer to the umbrella. And deep inside of me I wished that the ball would land on top of the umbrella and bounce off a couple of wise heads. Just to liven things up a bit.
In the background some players waved their outstretched hands in a fair imitation of the vaishnavites.My knowledgeable friend informed me that they were blocking the movement of the ball. How annoying, why couldn’t they rush around a little more and slip on the wet court. So much more entertaining .After all you could laugh at your own not-too-well appreciated joke about vaishnavites for only so long.
Hazel, a classmate of mine is a very gifted sportswoman. Everyone says so. She kept on scoring until the whole game was rendered pointless. We were winning by an enormous margin. Though I forget by how much exactly.
This of course went down excellently with everyone in the audience and the swimming team of our school started cheering with renewed energy. Our swimming team concocts strange, incomprehensible cheers which the whole school repeats without understanding. There is one that goes ‘ek dina dina dina, ek dina ukumpa…’Apparently it means nothing at all but it never fails to annoy the opponent team as they understandably don’t like being abused in foreign languages. They retaliate with something about ‘fata poster..’ Samriddhi, captain of our debate team grins and applauds weakly and confusedly. I don’t believe she knows a single cheer.
Five odd players continued to rush around the court while the rest of the team just sat. I felt sorry for them. They had been practicing for months in the sun and were all tanned a lovely brown yet weren’t allowed to play on the final day. They must feel very silly…
My wandering thoughts were cut off abruptly by a loud whistle. The game was over.
I suddenly couldn’t hear myself. I was told that we had won.
So we went home.
Disappointing end to an otherwise interesting day.