It might very well be the most amazing thing I did in all my three years (so far) in college.
Now, it's not as such as amazing as say, sky-diving, or backpacking all over the world for a year; it's not even that rare or once-in-a-lifetime kind of a deal.
To state it simply, in the January of this year, I went for a sports camp for 4 days.
A team of about 50 students from college went to ABV-IIITM Gwalior for Twaran 2013, an inter-IIIT Sports Festival.
What looked like baby pumpkins growing on a guava tree, in the Gwalior campus
Here's why it was so awesome:
1. In the middle of the semester, all of a sudden, I was free from the burden of deadlines and even more deadlines. I woke up every day with only two goals in mind: watch as many matches as you can, where people from IIIT Delhi are competing, and play as much as you physically can.
When there weren't teams to cheer for, there were practices, and then, real matches. I played volleyball, basketball, badminton, a bit of squash - pretty much everything I got the opportunity to play.
We ate when we got hungry and we slept when we finally returned to our beds at the end of a gloriously weary day.
2. I didn't know any of the girls who were going with me. I just knew one girl, who was from my batch, and she's quite lovely, but we just don't hang out that much. As many as 3 of the girls had strung along their boyfriends, and 3 more had very good friends among the 50. I didn't even know the guys that well. I expected to somehow just get along, and had prepared myself for a decent amount of getting bored.
Guess what? None of that happened.
From rebelling against their 10 PM in-time for the girls' hostel, to generally being high and laughing for no reason, from teaching some good Hindi
gaalis to the first-year girl in our midst, to waking everyone up in the large dorm where we slept*, for a "dance party" at midnight, I had more fun than I've ever had with some of my close friends in college.
3. None of us were amazing basketball players, and in fact, we hadn't even practiced for more than a week prior to this, but I lasted a full game of basketball, and we won the tournament**.
Playing something physical, and surpassing your own expectations of yourself really gives you a high, doesn't it? I did it first in basketball (just by having enough stamina to play throughout the entire game, which is kind of a big deal for me) and then again in volleyball (just by actually getting the ball across the net a few times, even though before the practices, I had last played volleyball nearly 8 years ago, and as a result of the practices, I had developed a general ache all over my wrists and forearms, wherever I had hit the ball). Someone actually commended my volleyball playing (you know, for a beginner :P), even though I'd only agreed to play to complete the team.
4. I was in a new place, doing something I had never done before in my life, with people I just knew by their names and faces in college, and it was fucking exhilarating. When I look back at those 4-5 days in Gwalior, despite the fact that I was really unwell the first few days there, despite the fact that we had to bathe out of buckets that were shared by all the girls from all the different colleges (well, 4 different colleges) staying in the dorm ***, despite the fact that I never really felt clean after using the girls' hostel toilets because they were so dirty ****, despite the fact that we actually lost the volleyball tournament *****, when I think of Gwalior, I only remember how utterly magnificent the whole experience was. Are sports camps always so much fun? Or did it only seem like this to me because it was my first time?
I am sure as hell going to try hard to go next year as well. I'm a decent basketball player (compared to you know, other people who play only once a year :P) I would say, and I can actually get the volleyball across the net. So, yes, why not?
* The dorm was a large room with 30 mattresses and 30 pillows that looked/sounded like they were stuffed with polythene bags, and 30 fluffy quilts. About 15 girls from 4 colleges turned up for Twaran, and they were all put up in that dorm.
** There was only one other competing team: the Gwalior team. So the entire tournament was essentially just one match, and we won it.
*** I generally dislike bathing out of buckets, especially in the winters when it introduces a bit of a gap between each successive mug of water you pour on yourself, during which cold air meets your wet skin. And much much much more so, if the buckets are communal.
**** They had paint buckets for mugs in the Indian-style toilets. With dried paint in it. And a 2L Coke bottle sliced in half. Their washbasins were grimy and the mirrors were full of specks.
***** There was only one other competing team: the Gwalior team. So the entire tournament was essentially just one match, and we lost it. So we won Silver.