Hemantha Kalam - 102 'Sportive'

I was perhaps five years old when I used to accompany my dear father every day early in the morning whenever he visited the Madras Social Cultural Club (now known as Andhra Social and Cultural Association). He was a tall man with longer strides. I have been a short guy with shorter strides. So, to 'catch up with him had always been a struggle'. Inevitably I could never catch up to him in any sense. But I always loved accompanying him on these visits though. The club had mango trees and when in season, mangos used to drop down and I could pick a few that helped in my mother’s kitchen.

My father used to visit the club frequently for two reasons. He used to play ball badminton and then it was his livelihood to collect racquets which needed gutting and so he used to go there almost on every day. Another reason that he used to visit was because he was an honourary member of the club, which meant that he need not pay any subscription but it came with a responsibility. If any VIP is playing and s/he does not have a partner, the honourary members had to play with the VIPs. Thus my father used to play with some of the luminaries of the Telugu tinsel world that is now being referred to as Tollywood.

To get the guts in wholesale, he used to cycle upto Parry’s and buy the guts in bulk. He had the equipment for gutting, which we still have in our house as his memory. I too had learnt to gut the racquets and if I try once again I might be able to do it right and proper.

I used to tag along my father as many times as I could because it was so much fun watching my dad play and shout during the game. Those days ‘Narayana’ racquets were the most reliable and durable. Later similar sounding ‘Ramayana’ racquets came around in the market but it was always Narayana that real players and wannabe real players wanted to use and flaunt around with.

My father was a real sports guy. He used to play cards, carroms, and table tennis apart from ball badminton and was also a good swimmer.

But, interestingly, he never taught us swimming, ever, and so his progeny became useless in the area of swimming. There were so many occasions in my life that made me rue because of this inability. He did guide me in the case of carroms though to sharpen my acumen in the game.

Though he could play some 18 varieties of card games, he never played cards with me. He never taught me playing cards either. I had to learn one or two simple card games on my own. Even when playing other games, my father always used to take the side opposite to me if and when we played together. If not, he used to help my opponents with strategy, giving me a lot of heartburn. He never explained to me why he did this to me. I used to shout at him whenever he did this to me but he simply used to smile, which he was very good at. 

Though I did play a bit of badminton/shuttlecock, and carroms, I could never play it as well as my father. And I can’t swim for anything. But my daughter plays carroms well that my father gifted her with his striker. I not only could imbibe his sports persona but failed to be sportive too!

Now it has been five years since he left us all but day after day, we can’t help but remember him and his many facets.

Hoping that he is comfy wherever he is now, playing whatever sport he is interested in and I, waiting to meet up with him again.

Until the next, 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India

{NOTE: This was to be published on 14th July the fifth anniversary of my dear father's demise. But as I was travelling and had difficulty in accessing stable internet network am forced to release it on the next immediate available opportunity}