Thank you sports!

I wanted to express my thanks to different sports that I have played in my life so far. I am not a sportsperson by any means but playing different sports at various points of my life has only helped me.

The sport that I have played the most and always enjoyed is cricket. I remember living in India as a child for more than nine years. Nearly every day from about 4 pm to about 5:30 pm or even later my neighbourhood friends and I would play cricket or its ‘gully’ version (bat and ball).

It was so much fun to bowl, bat, field, etc. Whether my team would win or lose did not matter to me. Of course we tried to win each time, but playing the game along with friends was just too much fun. I have rarely played the sport in a big field or stadium but whenever I did so it was a lot of fun and brought about a macro perspective compared to ‘gully’ cricket.

Another sport I have liked a lot is soccer. Often in my school’s weekly Physical Education class, my classmates and I would play soccer. It was a lot of fun to run around the field and chase the ball kicking it. Sometimes the games would get very competitive but that was part of the fun. My classes would have about 60 or more students each year so it would be interesting when we would have two teams of nearly 30 students instead of the usual 11 players per side. Later after moving to Canada I would play it nearly every weekend for about two years with my office colleague and his friends. I used to look forward to those weekend soccer matches.

One sport I played a bit in Indonesia and later in Canada as well was table tennis. I liked it very much. I wish I could play it more. In Indonesia we had a table tennis table at my home. So every second day or so I would play with my dad, sister or one of my dad’s staff members who worked at our house. After moving to Canada sometimes we would go to new family friends’ houses on weekends. One of these friends had a table tennis table at their home. I used to look forward to going to their place so that I could play table tennis with my friends and the guests who would come there for monthly parties.

Another of my favourite sports is swimming. I learnt it at my school in Indonesia and during my year there we had a swimming pool at my house. It was great to swim in the pool nearly every day for about an hour. I learnt the different swimming strokes at school and would practice them at my home’s pool. Years later in Canada I started swimming again. There is a neighbourhood pool operated by the city and I like going there a lot. I usually go two or three times a week and it is so much fun going for those swimming sessions. I try to swim at least 600m each time I go for a swimming session.

I love volleyball although I have played it very rarely. I remember once was during a 24 hour relay charity event for a good cause in 2002 with my colleagues. We had our team and played a few matches. I remember my serve was very good as the opposing teams were not glad whenever I sent a powerful serve. After many years I played it again with new colleagues in 2012 in the annual picnic event. I was part of a new team and we played many games in one day. Ultimately we came second in the volleyball tournament of the picnic event. It was a great experience for me. Once again I was able to serve well during these games.

So, that was a brief tribute to the sports I have loved and played in my life so far. I am thankful that I was able to play each of them. Whether I was a child or I was in my later years playing these sports has always been good for me and they were good experiences for me whenever I played them.