Run You Bastard,Run

Just the other day The Annual Sports Meet was held in my good old school.Brought back a lot of memories...fierce 'inter-house' rivalries,cut-throat competion,blood & sweat,survival of the fittest?Well not exactly.Memories of trying to bring the guy marching in front of you(during the march-past that is)down with a well aimed kick to the ankle(extra points and 'glory' gained if you also successfully managed to get the guy's foot out of his shoe...if you know what i mean.),digging a hole in the ground and playing mini-golf(you use your index fingure as your club and a marble or any circular object that rolls on the ground as the ball and you generally follow normal golfing rules *which by the way very few of us actually knew,but what the heck!*)while dedicated people went for their 100 metre and broad-jump heats.
The rivalry between the four houses,hugely innovatively named Red,Blue,Green and Yellow was truly fearsome.Eye-contact with members of rival houses was generally avoided,swear words and rude hand gestures were used instead.The best athletes,led life under tremendous pressure and fear as legend had it that some of their likes were prone to dissapear without any trace what so ever,before the big day.Boys spoke in hushed voices,the tug-o-war teams ate enormous amounts,trash talking was a common phenomenon,official 'flag-wavers' commanded enormous respect...the atmosphere during the heats and the practice sessions itself was electric.Teachers assigned to their respective houses were always under humungous pressure to deliver,pep-talks(ala P.K. Banerjee) were common,Shiv Khera's You Can Win was brandished after every 5 mins,secret bets were placed,money was at stake,reputations were on the line.So naturally the daily announcement of points during the build up to D-Day was greeted with hoops of joy and even more swear words.As a rule,in DBL,Red House always won everything.Allegations of favouritism and Fathers being communist were raised every year but as always the sparks of revolution from the other houses were always extinguished easily,by further deduction of points.As a rule,in DBL,losers like me were always placed in Blue House.Quite naturally Blue House finished last in evey race,every year.Occassional victories of Blue House athletes,immediately raised questions and allegations of performance enhansing drugs,but usually it was a threat from a certain teacher "If you do not win this race,i will make sure that you fail in my paper,this year,boy!"that did the trick,for us Blues.Blue House does hold the record though,for being the most disciplined House,for 7 consecutive years,once again the secret being our inherent laziness to cheer or shout slogans or even swear,for lets face it,we rarely had people from our House contesting on the final day.
The Final Day was a always a really colourful occassion.Parents whose wards were in Red House started to congratulte themselves in advance and got the cameras ready to capture the moments of glory.People like my parents(and other people related to Blue House,in any way) never went to watch me on the big day,the shame,the taunts,the loser chants was always too much for them to bear.But i used to keenly follow all the races,on the Final Day,my favourites being the obstacle race and of course the sack race.I always thought the guys participating in these two events had a masochistic streak in them.Why else would a person endure grazed knees and elbows,while trying to crawl under a bench,jump through tyres or climb make-shift walls?The futility of the whole exercise never occurred to them or to the hoards of cheering boys.Same applies for the sack race!What went on inside those rather dirty looking sacks,i never knew.But quite remarkably,all the squiglling and jumping actually helped the contestants to move forward.And when they tripped over on those sacks,boy that was a sight to see,falling face first,quite literally biting the dust!

P.S. In class 3 Ziggetyzoo had come 2nd in one of the heats of the 200mtrs,resulting in him being alloted the reserve runner position for the Finals.All the bastards had turned up,Ziggetzoo had bought the white shorts(all participants had to wear white shorts on the Final day),he had high hopes of competing and WINNING,he never got the chance to show his 'Maruti' like speed,he was dissapointed and had cried.He never wore those white shorts again.8 years later Ziggetyzoo watched Forrest Gump,his 'running' hopes have been renewed,he needs a pair of white shorts...and no, pink hotpants are NOT an option!