It was never just tennis...

A man with a limp , an irrepressible laughter and a shiny forehead said "keep bouncing the ball , till you can do it 20 times straight " . I started trying and i was nothing older than 11 years then . 10 years and a lot of bad tennis later , i'm where i was only the man , my coach , one of my inspirations isn't .

He had turned a weeded , parking lot into a tennis court (The National college tennis court) and i am proud to say i was one of the first students enrolled there . I trained for 5 years under him , i was never any tournament worth even as i shamelessly admit it , neither were most of my mates, much to his chagrin . But he trained us like we were gonna play the Wimbledon . Every month . Everyday . Every hour .

Patience took a whole new dimension with him , most of the audacious ones tried to skip the skipping (We were especially fond of skipping the 500 skips) and a whole lot of the calisthenics he had assigned to us . I was a straight arrow and he appreciated it . He invented ways to keep us occupied when the courts were wet , more often than not we got tricked into running extra rounds the National college basavanagudi grounds .

He gave us the greatest joy , that of winning , by conducting small tournaments in the court , guess what the prize was ? A masala dosa... The arousal he gave made it feel like it was worth the world...

He taught us discipline and how ? no white tee shirt ? no tennis that day... No tennis shoes ? no tennis ... the list goes on !! And guess what ? His kids ( :P) had to follow it too !

And i dare say everyone , around 25 kids at its pinnacle toed the line !!

I shouldn't forget to say he conducted invaluable life sciences classes for me which nobody else ever knows . It was between him and me only !

A lot of people passed through the court , many had a good time , not many are grateful and hardly any remembering the man who taught them tennis .

Here I am a month and a day later than what would have probably been his 68 ( he never divulged his personal life at the court) birthday , thanking and remembering him for he taught me NOT JUST TENNIS....

I spent a couple of years of my life dreaming of going back to training with him , alas it wasn't meant to be !

Words can't express what you mean to me....Thank you Goutham Sir !