DESCRIBE AN ACCIDENT WHICH
UPSET OR HURT YOU IN SOME WAY
I love badminton. I play it
as often as I can and with as many different opponents as I can find. With my
group of badminton-crazy friends we have formed a team called “The Young
Terrors”. We were suppose to strike terror in the hearts of our opponents
whenever we play a match. Sometimes we succeed, but sometimes it is we who get
terror-stricken.
We have a part-time
coach. Actually he is a teacher who used to represent the state in his younger
days. He is very good. Though I try my best to give him a fight, he always
beats the living daylights out of me. Anyone of us would consider it a great
thing if he manages to get five points from our coach.
Our coach trains us
on the finer points of playing badminton. He also arranges friendly matches for
us. It is during one of these friendly matches that I became a badminton
casualty. It was a most unfortunate accident but I learned a valuable lesson
from it.
We were all geared
up and ready on the lovely Saturday evening at seven. The match was to be
played away on our opponent’s flood-lit outdoor court. When we arrived at the
venue, we were impressed by the quality of the cement court. It was indeed a
good place to play the game provided the weather permits.
I was supposed to
play the first singles. So I went onto the court to warm up with one of my
teammates. We had some lively exchanges. I felt wonderfully fit and ready. During
one of the short exchanges near the net, I made the mistake of lifting the bird
up too high. My friend immediately slammed the shuttle down and as I was
standing so near the net, the shuttle hit me forcefully on the right eye. I
felt a stab of intense pain and clutched at my eye. For a moment I was
disoriented. All I saw was blurred flashes of light that seemed to swirl all
around me. I went down on my knees with my head in my hands. Teammates and
opponents alike came to my aid. Everyone was very concerned.
They hauled me onto
a chair and somebody brought a towel wrapped with ice to sooth my eye. I was in
considerable pain but it seemed to be lessening. After applying the cold
compress for a while, the pain went away. However my vision was affected. I
could not focus my injured eye. I felt awful.
After ten minutes
of waiting, our coach decided that I should not play singles. So he rearranged
the draw. I was to play in the last doubles of the day. How degrading I felt. I
was very upset; upset at the unfortunate accident; upset at the inability to
focus my eye, upset at not being able to play singles and most of all upset at
the indignity of being hit by the shuttle. How could I be so stupid as to look
up near the net? The obvious thing to do was to protect one’s face by looking
away. Nevertheless I sat there gloomily watching the games half-focused eyes
wishing that my sight would return to normal.
It did not anyway,
not that night. It took three days before my sight became normal again. So when
I took to the court for the last doubles that night, I played like a novice. I
kept missing the shuttlecock. Only then I realized the importance of two eyes
to judge distance and position. One eye cannot do the job adequately. We lost
the last match miserably. On the whole, we lost to better opponents that night.
I was one of the causes of the loss. I could have beaten the first singles
player. This issue was left to the return-match where I am happy to say that I
categorically trounced him and restored some pride to our team.
From the
unfortunate incident, I learned to be careful. Badminton may look soft and
harmless to an onlooker. I know better. To be hit on any part of the body by a
smashed shuttlecock at close quarters is a painful experience. The important
thing is not being hit on the sensitive part. That will incapacitate you. A little caution prevents a lot of pain and
hurt.
DESCRIBE THE SCENE OF A FIRE
YOU WITNESSED IN A THICKLY POPULATED AREA AT NIGHT.
I was on my way
home. On my motorcycle after exercising in the Lake Gardens
when I saw thick black smoke billowing upwards some distance from me. It was
twilight time and the dirty black smoke rising against the brilliant red
western sky presented quite a spectacle. I knew that a fire was raging and
judging by the color and the fury of the smoke, I reasoned that it was probably
caused by the burning of rubber and diesel oil.
I continued home
and I noticed that the smoke was getting closer. The column of the black smoke
were both magnificently and ominous. Then as I rounded a bend along the road, I
saw the fire. The glow of fifty-foot flames shooting upward was blinding. I
blinked my eyes to let it adjust to the sudden brightness. After a while I
could see that a row of shops was on fire. A tyre shop, a welding and painting
shop and two car repair shops were right in the middle of the blaze. I knew
these shops well because they were only a few hundred yards away from my house,
fortunately on the other side of the road.
All traffic along
the road beside the fire was halted. A policeman directed me to a side road
that led to a housing estate opposite the burning shops. I rode into the
side-road that led to a housing estate opposite the burning shops. I rode into
the side-road and stopped to watch the fire.
The heat was so
intense that the firemen could not even approach the fire much less try to
extinguish it. I could see two firemen crouched behind their fire-engine about
fifty yards from the burning shops. They were desperately directing their jet
of water toward a row of shop-houses just next to the fire. I could see that
they were trying to keep the fire from spreading by keeping the neighboring
houses wet.
Presently more
fire-engines came and the firemen set about containing the fire. They sprayed a
protective ring of a water around the fire. If the fire were to spread to the
other shop houses, the loss would be unimaginable. From these other shop houses
I could see figures working feverishly trying to remove their belongings to a
safer area. I could also see policemen trying to prevent the occupants from
entering the shop houses. The dangers were obvious.
Then came a series
of explosions that rocked the neighborhood. The oxygen and the acetylene
cylinders used for welding burst open spectacularly sending trails of sparks
that pierced the now dark sky. The shower of sparks that followed every
deafening explosion was greeted by hand clapping and shouting from a group of
young boys near me. I could understand how they felt. This display of glowing
red sparks would put the best New Year fireworks to shame.
Looking at these
boys I suddenly realized that there were so many people beside me. All of tem
were gaping at the fire. Their faces, lit by the glow of the fire, revealed a
variety of emotions. Some were crying, some were looked frightened, some
indifferent and a few actually enjoying the scene.
The fire raged
unabated for almost an hour. The whole shop full of tyres was the perfect fuel.
Coupled with grease and diesel from the other shops, no fore department on
Earth could hope to stop the blaze. So all of us, the firemen, the policemen
and the onlookers just stood there and watched, waiting for the fire to burn
itself out.
As the fire
progressed, whole walls came tumbling down revealing three of four cars in one
of the shops. They were blazed like the paper car that the Chinese burn for
their dead ancestors. I wondered what the superstitious Chinese are going to
say about this burning of real cars.
Gradually, the fire
became less intense as the fuel were burned away. The firemen turned their
attention to the burning shops. I could see five or six streams of silvery
water arcing pathetically into the fire. However, after fifteen minutes or so,
the fire was visibly reduced in intensity. Flames still licked hungrily at
various places in the burnt-out hulk of once well-stocked shops.
Without the glow of
fire, darkness reigned. Silently the onlookers disappeared from the scene. I
could just make out the silhouettes of the firemen busy at their tasks.
Elsewhere I could see groups of people hurrying back to their shop houses. How
fortunate they had been. They certainly had a close call. As there was nothing
left to see or do, I started my motorcycle and weaved my way through the
thinning traffic towards home.
MY EARLIEST RECOLLECTION
How many of us can
recollect our early experiences as a baby? For me, my earliest begin at about
the time when I could walk. Prior to that, I cannot recall even a little bit.
I remember walking
along he gravel path hand-in-hand with my neighbour. She was a young and lovely
girl with a ready smile. We used to take these walks together in the evenings.
I would be all dressed up in clean clothes and tiny leather shoes. I was quite
particular about my appearance then. She would take me right up to the main
road where we would watch the cars speed by. Sometimes when my little legs got
tired, she would carry me home in her arms.
That was many years
ago. I am not so particular about my clothes now. T-shirt and faded jeans feel
more comfortable. I heard that my lady companion passed away recently. I cannot
even remember how she looked like.
How time flew past.
My family used to live in a run-down area at the outskirts of town. Our house
was a wooden one and it was always in need of repair. Our neighbours all live
in similar wooden houses. Nobody owned a car. The most prestigious transport
was a new bicycle. It was always an event to see somebody coming home in a taxi
or in a trishaw. Such an event was as rare as New Year’s Day.
It was in this
environment that I spent my first five years of life. I never knew what a
television set was. Sometimes I heard songs from a radio set. More often I only
heard sounds emanating from the jungle behind our neighbourhood. These were the
sounds of insects, birds and the occasional monkey.
I never stepped
into that jungle because there were a lot of rumours about tigers, elephants
and ghosts. Looking at the eerie darkness in between the trees it was not a
difficult for a four year old to believe what was being said. Furthermore the
dangling vines and tiny leeches were not my idea of fun. Anyway the jungle has
disappeared forever, a victim of development. So I will never be able to
venture into it. I had the chance as a child. Now the chance is gone and never
will return again.
It was into this
jungle that my neighbours would go hunting occasionally. I have seen monkeys,
birds and squirrels being brought back. There was the time when they caught an
ant-eater with thick armour plates around its body. This little creature, about
a foot long had rolled itself into the tight ball. It refused to open up. Later
I found out that this was the way it defended itself when in danger. However
its defense is not good enough that day. It became ant-eater soup for a lucky
hunter.
We had a rattan
table-cum-chairs specially made for two infants. My sister, who was a year
older than me, would be placed on one chair and I on the other chair opposite
her. There we would sit in precarious balance while we have our meal on the
table between us. I still wonder how my mother was able to seat us both
simultaneously, for it was not possible to seat one baby only on one chair and
keep the balance of the whole contraption. Another baby on the opposite chair
was needed for balance. I was too young to remember how she did it.
Childhood
experiences sometimes leave visible marks on our bodies for the rest of our
lives. Most of these experiences were painful ones. I had a particularly
painful one. It happened when I somehow got hold my brother’s scout dagger and
started cutting some coconut leaves with it. I remember distinctly chopping the
tip of my index finger right to the nail with it. The next thing I remember was
that I was crying non-stop and my mother applied some medicine and bandaged the
finger, which was nearly severed. That was many years ago. Even now when I look
at the semi-circular scar line around my finger I am reminded of the
experience. I learned to respect knives from that day on.
When I was about
five, my family moved to the opposite side of town where my father had acquired
a business. The home we moved into was a larger one. Around it there was a huge
open space, occupied by a coconut plantation on one side and a playing field on
the other. In this new environment, I spent my next three years before moving
on to another house in the outskirts of town, but that is another story altogether.
My early childhood had ended and a new phase had begun.
