The Big Blank

War of the worlds

We have this "World War" going on among the 3 hostels. It is the annual publicising of your own hostel, putting up posters, putting up skits to get your point through and getting maximum points(Yeah here too!!). And then the week long sporting activities. This is the preparation for the annual IIMC-XLRI sports meet which XL manages to win once every 8-10 years and that disaster struck last year. But what happens is basically it brings the same hostel people closer and by newton's action reaction, further from other hostels people. One can sledge to heart's content in the matches and still not get enough of it. One's family is dragged on to the court and by the end of the match the family relations are so screwed up that you hope you can start afresh. This is also a good preparation for IIMC-XL as the same things you hear from the girls there. And in the end, like everytime, there was the usual discussion about the futility of it all.

Anyway, I got interested only in the sporting part and that too in the sports which me and my close friends were playing. Sounds snobbish but that is the way. I have not the sort of enthusiasm I had as a fresh bachelor in these activities. I played (basketball) with some passion on court and remember bashing a few PGP1s. The institute basketball team players are too close knit to sledge among ourselves in these inter-hostel matches. But still there were heated moments on courts. Without these moments sports are not sports. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The result went like "win some loose some" :P. I also realised today, as a referee, how difficult it is to referee these matches. And we had this basketball coach at IIT-B who can referee while showing favouritism. Man!! that required skill. I recall he had a PhD in sports. Getting back to IIM-C I expect people of the age group around 25 to be more gracious in their victory/loss. But here people will just not shut up. They will stand on rooftops, shout themselves hoarse and more. The war is over with the closing events going uncontested as the winners are well ahead of the pack and right now they are shouting down below that they are the ones. I would have been happy to win but I mean who cares!!

posted by Pankaj Jain @ 12:55 PM