“You only live once but you get to serve twice.”

I started playing badminton because of my Dad. He used to go every morning at 6 am to play badminton with a group near my house. The court was on mosaic tiles. I joined his group and had bruised knees as diving on Mosaic tiles can be very painful. My neighbour’s son also used to play badminton and he was being trained by his father. The surroundings around me prompted me to explore this sport more seriously. 

I took some basic coaching with Raut sir and Sarfare sir.

I had participated in various qualifying tournaments  for district and state.. The craze was so much that i used to play doubles from 5 am to 7 am and then singles in the evening from 9 pm to 10 pm at Modern Complex. I did this for 4 years, before I left for further studies in the UK. 

Even in the UK, I had to play multiple rounds for qualifying into the badminton team for Cardiff University. Once in the team, I was travelling all across the UK for the inter university matches. It was very interesting to play at different venues. I was partnering with Rogers. a Malaysian. I still remember the last match we played, where our key player could not come and we were expected to lose badly. Rogers and I gave a tough fight to the players and pushed them to 3 games. This was the quarter finals the team lost 3-2.

I also played in the semi-finals of the singles tournament for Gujratis in the UK.

I have organised a few local badminton tournaments over the years and played a few as well. The last tournament was in July and the next one is in September.

I still play regularly every alternate morning from 7 am to 8 am.

Due to my back issues, the doctors have told me to Quit the sport otherwise the back pain will  keep increasing.So, I stop playing for a few months and then restart and the passion for the sport keeps me coming back.

The sport taught me to accept winning and losing gracefully and starting afresh every morning. Another trait, i have picked up with the sport  “Those who play badminton take decisions quickly” 

My Fav player is Taufiq Hidayat.   

I still dream of visiting and watching the All England Open in the UK. I would love to coach kids on the basics of the sport and write about badminton matches in the blog, but that is for another day.

“You’ve been served.”