I got a refresher course in this lesson on Saturday evening.
Saturday afternoon saw my parents come out with their guns blazing questioning my laziness, being waisty and spending a lot of time at the malls. Yet, I had to honor my commitment of going to City Center with Raghu and headed to his house. Once I reached his place, I suddenly remembered all the discussions the 2 of us had about setting up a basketball board/hoop in my house, so that we could play.
That discussion had then veered off towards playing basketball in the school where we studied because (1) it had a proper basketball court and (2) proximity to his house. And it has actually been sleeping at that stage for a few months now. But after the mini-tirade I received at home, I finally convinced him to proceed with our plan and so we bought a Spartan brand basketball, from a shop nearby. We came back home and after leaving behind all our valuables - wallet, keys and mobile - we walked up to the school and started playing basketball.
When I mean "playing" I obviously don't mean playing in the true sense of the word, especially when you consider that we were "playing" basketball. We tried running around trying to steal the ball off one another but then our gasping lead us to stop that attempt after merely 2 minutes.
We then just decided to just shoot free throws. Raghu then refreshed his memory from schooldays and said that we could play "ZEROES". This is quite simply a case where the player has to go to 6 designated and marked spaces around the basket and shoot the ball.
I must advise the reader at this point at least, that I have never really played basketball before. Never in school and never in college. I am obviously excluding the one time I played it in Los Angeles at my client place, because that was for a total of say 5 minutes or so and when I tried defending a 6 footer, he reminded me that I was creating a record of committing the maximum number of fouls and violations in a single possession! And him a whole lot of others were actually laughing at the way I was playing, so I didn't make a second attempt there.
Anyways, coming back to Zeroes, the first two spots from where I had throw, were really close to the basket - practically at the "paint". I somehow managed to shoot those 2, though it did take me a few attempts. The 3rd spot was where it got tricky.
The third spot was right at the top of the 3 point line. I tried shooting the ball with the best of intent, but sadly that didn't help the ball go into the basket. Actually, for the first 10 or 15 attempts, I barely managed to hit the board, let alone touch the rim of the basket.
Seeing my plight, Raghu, who btw was miles ahead of me in the game by virtue of having played it in school, gave me tips about holding and releasing the ball. While I didn't follow it to a T, it at least helped me reach the board more consistently.
After many many attempts, I finally managed to shoot the trey and then went on to complete the set. He'd of course, finished much earlier and the second set we played was no different. I was again, stuck at the top of the trey and unable to shoot the ball into the hoop in the first couple of attempts. But I did manage to score after probably 6-7 attempts.
One thing I noticed was that while I didn't really score the treys, but whenever I scored, it was nothing but the net - no clanking of rim, no bounce back from the board, no lucky rolls etc. It was just plain net .Swoosh!
All along, I was comparing the way I was now shooting, with the way I shot the ball in the arcade at City Center. I used to dominate that game so much and found it so easy to play. Obviously having a net at 7 feet height and at a distance of 3 feet makes a BIG difference in getting the ball into the net! Probably, excessive playing time at the arcade has probably eroded my natural skills on a real basketball court.
Anyways, we wound up after an hour and then went on to do other stuff like going to an eatery for chaat items and then heading to a baby shop to buy a gift for Ramadurai's daughter, on the occasion of her ayush homam today (Sunday morning).
Today, I didn't have too much of body pain which in a way is actually unusual. Probably spending two successive Wednesdays on the cricket ground near the office returned some amount of sanity into my system. Of course, Raghu didn't seem to have that luck and till this evening, he said he was feeling like he had completed a heptathlon yesterday!
I hope we can sustain this momentum and continue to play basketball. As of now, the next "game" date is set for May 1st, but it will be in the morning time. Hope I am able to wake up Raghu, for the same.
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