Anyone at the finals of the Chennai Open squash tournament at the ICL Squash Academy yesterday would’ve naturally assumed I was passionate squash enthusiast, an admirer of Dipika Pallickal, the local girl, playing in the womens final or a journalist! For that should broadly cover the profile of the sparse crowd that assembled to watch

Of course, you wouldn’t make that mistake if you were already there when I arrived. For no journalist would bank on borrowing his prime weaponry - a pen and some paper- from the tournament organisers. And surely no squash enthusiast would actually wind up asking the Indian national coach, and arguably, the most recognizable figure in Indian Squash, Cyrus Poncha “and you are….?”, that too on his home turf!

Well, I must pause here a moment to talk about Cyrus. There was the Head coach of the Indian National Squash team, right at the door of the sporting complex, to welcome me in with the warmest “hi, you’re the first person in today” that you can imagine from a person who’s name is pronounced everytime any person talks about the game in India, a Dronacharya awardee even at his young age. Only too glad to oblige me with the back side of the score sheet of the previous days match, and his pen. And only too humble to reply to the inadvertent “and you are….?”, with a wonderful smile and “uhh… My name is Cyrus Poncha. I happen to be the coach of the Indian team”. I knew that!

Getting back, after an obnoxiously long hour waiting - an hour in which I chatted up with the Chennai sports reporter from Times, the Express reporter who did not want to be interrupted, a mallu fan of Dipika Pallickal, and a wannabe motivational speaker and author Ashok, who attends sports competitions to get ideas for his speeches, and watched the players doing exercise routines to warm up while listening to whatever was playing on their ipods – began a match of what is known to be the fastest sport in the world. Very soon it would strike me that it was not only the fastest, but maybe one of the most energy sapping too! The only game with caged players – not counting certain exhibitions of a make-believe sport christened as World wrestling entertainment - a game in which camera’s peep out of glass panes designed into the wall so that they can capture the faces of the players – a previlege spectators miss – and a game with the least aesthetics when it comes to hitting, which more looks like plain lunging at a ball that apparently can never be punctured.

And did not Ritwik Battacharya, the reigning champion, get off to a rocker. With a blatant display of pure strength and raw aggression, he looked as if he would run away with the match against a relatively smaller and tame-looking Sourav Goshal before I could even get familliar with the rules of the game. But that was only in the first game. In the second, Saurav looked like he was just wearing Ritwik in the first as he out–ran, out-shot, out –placed and out-rallied his veteran opponent out of the rest of the game to win 7-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-6 in under 50 minutes. He was greeted by, among few others, the contender for the womens title and his good friend, Dipika Pallickal.

Now this is the first tournament I have witnessed with the tenacity to hold the womens finals after the men’s, and on a bigger and newer court! And maybe for good reason. For the bigger hall soon had a good enough crowd to make some kind of noise in the pretext of cheering. And there suddenly was a host of voices – presumably friends of the local girl – shouting ‘come on Dipika’ to a point where one would sympathise with her opponent from Hong Kong, who eventually won but had just one Indian, a four–foot tall boy walking up to shake her hand after the match. A boy who was startled to realize she didn’t understand his language, English, too young to know that sport has a language of its own, a language that transcends cultures, a language where emotions like applause, congratulation, booing, or swearing needs no classroom experience.

****

Well that was an attempt at covering a live event, an attempt to hone my journalistic skills, or test them, depending on your point of view. Only that it turned out to be more of a frolic writing, But the crown of the evening was this conversation I had after the event, with a friend I sing with at the Madras Musical Association choir.

Me : heyyy (in my new endearing style that at best, sounds sexily smooth)

She : heyyyy (ya, my way of saying heyyy calls for a similar response)

“So wassup.. how come you’re here?”

“uhh well, Im the wife of Cyrus Poncha”

“OH MY GOD”

‘why, you know him?

“uh… well, I was the first person in today….”

By now she was looking out for her husband, and suddenly doubts creeps in my mind on the lines of, am I talking to who I think I am. I quickly take leave and message a friend “hey, keep this between us, ok? That parsi girl who sings with us, is she uh... well, married?”