Diameter Dilemma

Size does matter!

1.68 inches is the minimum diameter for a golf ball by international guidance. Well pardon me if facts are not accurate. No shame in saying that I feel quite challenged when acquaintances of various order play this game of ultimate prestige with ace. Lush green corridor on undulating plains that adds to the visual quotient of the game speaks volume about the wealth that this sport claims. In many preachy management sessions have heard deals are not signed in board rooms but on golf courses while one strikes between the holes.

Yes, amazon and flipkart’s of the world sell so many books on this subject! Out of sheer curiosity bought one such book and studied all about the mystery of 18 holes. Shhh…  Some knowledge are worthless on reading table. Have consciously noticed that short profiles that has mention of golf in the last one or two lines of introduction have always caught my eyes. Social posts in golfer’s shoes with expert or amateurish look always made me search for something inside. I know why!

Let me share some little truths. Was caught up in a public place around afternoon today. Had to squeeze in the overcrowded landing of a building to let the spell of sudden shower pass through. At one corner of the road side shanty noticed two teenagers playing a game. Guess they belong to the community who have taken shelter below the city flyover. That is their home and drenched in monsoon they kept sporting a game I enjoyed playing. Exactly that’s the reason thought of penning something I loved years back and now buried in the sand of times.

The balls were mostly 1 cm in diameter. Yes, of varied colours. The rule of the game was completely different. No stick but a striker. Placed the nine balls in three parallel rows and kept hitting them with the striker till all were displaced. That was the bare basic one. One can do lot of permutation and combination on it to make it moderate to complex. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow….. My striker was white in colour with a streak of royal blue. It was my favourite afternoon pastime. A good strike rate would always give me a kick. A dry soil was the most needed bed for the game. Winters were the best bet!

I never had a partner in this game and neither anyone to encourage. Guess this was not a game to be played. However on my way to local market for small time shopping, with a privilege of being unsupervised, many a times have stood by street urchins who played this game in groups. How much I loved to have joined them but had never been successful to do so. In every given opportunity tried to learn the traits of the game. Every visit to the local bakery shop (in my local terms gumti dokhan…, very unlike the fancy ones that sells brown bread in air conditioned stores in my neighbourhood today), meant careful transaction of an ball from the jar that had dreams unlimited! It costed 5 paisa then. Such deals are history now!

Had negotiated an empty glass bottle of ‘Horlicks’ to store my pride possession for several years. It gave me more energy than the booster drink with a fat MRP. Was fanatic to keep adding various colours to the collection! But had never had the courage to proclaim my love in public. There was a stigma of being associated to a game that missed the elitism and the support of social mind-share. It had made a silent departure from my life, quite naturally. Nothing distinct in memory as to what happened to that jar. But it had blocked some space in my mind. May have moved from the back burner to the freezer, but preserved the spirit in totality.

After decades seeing two unknown street kids playing with the colourful balls, mindlessly kept fancying the long lost jar. It was more than many deals. They were dreams of a teenager who enjoyed playing alone.

Yes, I played with marbles. I should have continued… played a shadow round this afternoon. What, you thought I have gone mad aspiring this should have been a game in Olympics. Not at all, just that I realized that it is quite a good exercise for fingers that keep typing for bread and butter J.