Badminton

Kritvik Bhatt

I was studying. I had my eyes on the notebook open in front of me on my desk. The blue pen was in my right hand, and the pages were scribbled with mathematical formulas and calculations filled with the letters ‘x’ and ‘y’. My eyes, for some reason, were staring aimlessly at my desk as I was lost in my own thoughts.

In my mind, Sana was smiling as both of us were walking down the breathtaking scenery of white and red flowers all around us. Both of us wore black, and had our eyes on the shining blue sky.

I then closed my eyes, turned my head up, opened my mouth, and yawned. I then turned my head downward on the notebook and looked at the calculations with my eyes half-closed. No doubt, I was feeling sleepy.

On top of my three-story dark brown apartment in front of other white and brown apartments which filled our streets on both sides, the blue was fading away, obviously. It was evening after all.

The street was filled with cars and streetlights every couple meters. It was in its usual peaceful state, obviously, with no humans and stuff walking here and there like always, for some reason.

“Sana must be having difficulties with this stuff, man!” I thought as I smiled. “She is kinda weak in math, after all.” I then turned to my right at the door, my smile fading away. “Maybe I should ask her how well she’s doing. But, my mom won’t give me my phone back until the exams are over.” I then turn to my notebook again. “Maybe I should just focus on math for now.”

Creeeak.

I turned my head rightward.

“A friend of yours is here, Kritvik,” My mom said as she opened the door.

I pushed my chair backward, stood up, and curiously started to walk to the door as I watched my mom turning away and walking back.

“Is it her? Please, let it be her!”

BUMP! BUMP! BUMP! BUMP! My heart banged on my chest and adrenaline rushed in as I walked to the doorframe and turned to my left, looking at the entrance.

“Huh?” I felt the adrenaline slowing going down and my heartbeat returning to normal as I looked at the door. “Aaryan?”

Aaryan stood at the door, wearing a pair of dark blue loose denim jeans and a loose white t-shirt. His eyes were fixed on the sofa, for some reason—maybe he was lost in his thoughts. He then turned to me and said, “Yeah, pal. I wanna talk to ya. Come down ASAP.”

“O-Okay.”

***

“So, what do you wanna talk to me about?” I asked him as we walked parallel to each other. My eyes were to my right on him as he looked at the front.

“Ya see, pal, I… I’ve decided to quit smoking.”

“Yeah.”

“And my counseling has started. Today was the first session.”

I nodded.

“So, he told me that I need to hang out with friends every day for about one to two hours, playing badminton or football or some shit.”

“So you called me for that?”

“Yeah.”

Both of us were walking down the peaceful street, with the intersection about a dozen steps away from us.

I turned my head to the front. I stuffed my hands inside my black denim pants as I said, “Maybe you should call Sooraj too.”

“He comes back from his practice at around seven or eight. So, he’d be there right now.”

I nodded. “So what about some other friends of yours?”

He frowned in disgust. “Why do ya want more people?”

“It’s better to play with as many people as possible, man. Just two… are not enough, for some reason. More people make the game interesting, after all.”

“Yeah, perhaps.”

I turned to him again and asked, “So, any other guys in mind?”

“Not really. But we can try Rohit, though.”

I turned to the front. “Yeah, he’d do.”

Both of us then stopped in front of the intersection. “Perhaps ya can call that girl ya always roam with.”

“She won’t come,” I said. “Tomorrow is our math exam. Even I will leave in a few hours.”

“Periodic test?”

“Half-yearly.”

He turned to me and frowned in disbelief. “Half-yearly? Weren’t they meant to be in September?”

“Yeah, but since this session started late because of the pandemic and late declaration of results last year, our school decided to shift the half-yearly a little. But, they’re like pre-boards at this point of time, man. The syllabus is almost over.”

“That’s dumb, right?”

“Sure it is,” I turned to him and looked into his eyes. “So, what should we do now? Call Rohit?”

“Yeah, he must have badminton rackets too. Plus, I have a school friend named Aakash. Perhaps he’d join in too.”

***

“Aakash is a true asshole, ya see,” Aaryan said in frustration, his eyes half-closed in annoyance. “He fucking wanna talk to his gal the one fucking time I called him.”

Aaryan, Rohit, and I were walking down the empty streets in the evening. The blueness of the sky had almost faded away, and it was about to turn dark soon. For some reason, the streetlights where we were walking were turned on already.

“It’s amazing that a motherfucker like him even has a gal, to be honest,” Rohit commented in his heavy voice. He had a really thin badminton kitbag, which was stuffed with two-three badminton rackets, maybe. The bag had shuttlecocks inside bulging outward. He walked with his hands inside his pockets, his eyes straight frontward. He walked in an attitude, like always, obviously.

“Yeah, his face is worse than mine, man!” I joined the conversation.

“Asshole! I want a gal too!” Aaryan said as he turned to me.

I turned my head to my right. “Me too, man!”

Rohit, who walked in the middle of us, smiled as he said, “I got a fucking hot chick, motherfuckers!”

I turned to him and smiled. “Great, man!”

Aaryan turned frontward as he smiled. “Asshole, stop flexing here.”

“Ya can’t even flex because ya got none, motherfucker,” Rohit smiled.

“Ya see, I’m not into girls right now. I focus on other things.”

“Girls are not into ya, motherfucker!” Rohit annoyingly replied.

I smiled. “Damn, man. Great one.”

Aaryan chuckled too. “Hehe. Right. But that’s not fucking true at all, alright? Some girls have confessed to me, but I just reject them.”

Rohit gave a little smile too. “Yer fault then, motherfucker.”

I frowned in doubt as I turned to him. “Huh? But why do you reject them?”

“All of them are fucking hoes, pal.”

“Damn,” I smiled as I turned my head frontward again. “Anyway, do you all know any badminton courts around?” I asked. “No doubt, badminton is nothing without a court, after all. I used to play badminton a lot before I shifted here.”

I remembered a scene of one such night when Jiya, Aditya, Madhav, and I used to play badminton on a badminton court, which was in the middle of the back edge of a park and had bright lights on the edge of the pathway behind the court.

“Yeah, I know a place,” Aaryan replied. “Ya see, there’s a park with a cemented badminton court at one corner of it. We can use that.”

“Great.”

***

“This place is a fucking mess, motherfucker!” Rohit shouted.

“Yeah, so what?” Aaryan was smiling as he looked toward the park.

I had a neutral face as I was turning my head right and left. “Man, some people are even roaming here…”

“It’s not that bad!” Aaryan shouted at us with a smile. He then stepped frontward.

“That’s fucking dangerous, motherfucker! Don’t step on that shit!”

He stepped with his right foot on the toes, then stepped leftward with his left foot, and then stepped frontward to the footpath some steps away.

I turned my head down and stepped my right foot in the same way, walking in toward the footpath. Beside my foot was sewer water, filled with dark garbage stuff, leaking out. On our right was a wall to the wide white apartment, from where a pipe was leaking out that water.

After I had jumped on the footpath, I turned my head up and looked at Aaryan walking in. I started to follow him.

Rohit tried to cover all that distance with one jump. However, he landed just a step behind, and water splashed all over his mustard pants.

Splash!

We both turned backward, and he turned his head up at us.

“FUCK!” He shouted.

Both of us chuckled as we turned to the front and started to walk in. “Ahahaahaahahahaa, asshole!”

“Ahahahhahaha! Damn, man! Ahahaahaa!”

“Shut up, motherfuckers!” He said as he stepped on the footpath and followed us.

All of us walked a couple of steps, reached an opening between the bushes which were on our left, and then stepped on the grass. As we all walked in, we turned our heads left and right, scanning the whole park.

The grass was poorly maintained, for some reason. We could see the leaves lying dead on the ground. The bushes too were decent, for some reason, but were fed sewer water. The row of bushes was on the left of the entrance, the apartment on the right, and in between them was an empty space of a couple of steps filled with just soil. The slope which was made to connect the raised footpath to the soil on the ground too was poorly constructed, for some reason. It was not a soft stuff to walk on, obviously.

I turned my head rightward and noticed a cemented square at the edge of the park. It had two poles which pointed downward at the net. The net had holes in it, and its top rope had worn down. The poles were rusted. Little flies were flying around the light of the poles tilted downward at the top. There was a metallic bench on the right, between the court and the bushes in front of the footpath, which was rusted.

Obviously, it felt like it had not been used for years, and didn’t look the best of things to walk toward. Overall, it didn’t look like a great badminton court, obviously.

Both Rohit and I stood beside each other, staring with our eyes narrowed in disappointment. Aaryan stood in front of us, his head tilted to his right at the court. He was smiling. “How’s it, assholes?”

“To be honest, it’s a total piece of shit.”

“I don’t want to use such words, but it’s exactly how Rohit described it, no doubt.”

Aaryan’s smile faded as he said, “I know it’s shit, but we won’t get a better one than this.”

“Well, let’s go, then,” Rohit suggested and started to walk hurriedly toward it. “I ain’t going back without playing a game, motherfuckers.”

I smiled and started to run. “Same here!”

Rohit walked past Aaryan as he shouted at him, “Motherfucker, I’d be the first one to play.”

I dashed from between both of them toward the badminton court as I shouted back at them. “The second one in the race can play against me!”

“Aye motherfucker!” Rohit too started to run.

Aaryan smiled as he too started to run between the two of us as he shouted, “Assholes, we can play a two versus one game together!”

“In yer fucking dreams!”

“No doubt!”

***

“No doubt, what followed was an hour of pure fun, man. We all played great games, giving competition to each other, jumping to hit the shuttlecock, running to the net to take up the drop, and laughing and having fun. For the first time since I came here, maybe, I… I had forgotten that the time was running. I had had this much of physical fun after so many damn days, man. After so many damn days.”

Aaryan and I were on the court against each other. Both of us were sweating, smiling as we looked at each other. I turned downward, walked rightward, and then turned my head up to look at him. “Huff. Huff. Nineteen-nineteen.”

Aaryan said, “Don’t ya think ya can beat me, asshole.”

“We’ll see, man,” I said with a smirk as I left the shuttlecock from my left hand and hit it up with my racket. He looked upward at the shuttlecock coming at him, moved his right arm up, walked a few steps back, and hit the shuttlecock. The green stuff came at me with full force, on my chest level. I swung my racket as it came flying on my right.

Rohit sat on the bench, looking at the shuttlecock flying in the air, smiling. “Motherfuckers, this is the most intense game of the night!”

“Right?” Aaryan said as he swung at the shuttlecock. “And I’m not gonna lose!”

Smash! Smash! Smash! Tap! SMASH!

Rohit looked at the shuttlecock flying from one side to the other, smiling.

No doubt—all of us thought at once, “When… was the last time that I had this much fun?”