Ball is Life

Midnight musings on basketball, life, and everything in between.

Girls from a community basketball program for at-risk children © Ila Reddy

Have you ever played a sport?

I have.

Throughout my schooling, basketball was life. I can’t remember how or when I picked up the sport. I think my father taught me how to shoot when I was a toddler. Or I may have picked it up in my first school, Mirambika, where every day started with an hour of sport. While the early days are a blur, the middle and the end are not. I woke up every morning with the anticipation of playing ball. I slept at night dreaming of playing ball. Dribbling. Dodging. Doing a perfect layup. In awe of the grace with which the ball swooshes through the net. Effortless three pointer shots. The teamwork. The speed. The high after a game. The low after a missed free throw in a match. The exhaustion. The jammed fingers. The joy.

From fifth to twelfth grade, I spent every spare hour in school on the court. At first we had an outdoor court that was an extension of the parking lot because our school campus was still under construction. Later, we got an indoor basketball court, which made it easier to play in the afternoon heat. The coaches were chill, mostly interested in football and cricket, while the sole basketball coach took interest only before competitive matches, where he’d stand on the side and spew abuses at us for missing a shot.

I don’t miss the inter school matches or even the early morning training sessions of the school team of which I was a part. I miss the games we played for fun. The endless hoops we scored in our free time, bunking classes and stealing precious minutes whenever we could. The court was my happy place, my refuge. If I scored well in an exam, I wanted to play a game of ball to celebrate. If I got shitty marks in Math, I needed to play a game of ball to cope.

All of this changed when I got to college. The campus had a court but no girls team. Whenever I crossed it on my way to the canteen, I’d spot a bunch of tall dudes with big biceps playing. Never a woman in sight. It was a daunting sight, so I focused on other interests, slowly accepting that my basketball days were over.

Fast forward eight years and I found myself working at a tech startup where a majority of the team were in their early twenties, mostly from other states, and with minimal responsibilities outside of work. So post work, and on weekends, some of us would gather at a sports complex and play ball. We played for fun, some people for the first time, and sometimes competed with kids half our age (and always lost). These sessions never became as regular as I’d hoped, but it felt so good to play a sport as an adult. It didn’t matter that our muscles were sore for the next three days!

The only photo I could find of myself on the court

I left that particular startup seven years ago, and work took me to other places (physically and mentally). I gradually slipped back into a sedentary lifestyle, missing the presence of a sport in my life, and envious of those who still had it.

But love has a way of finding us, even when we’re not looking for it. Even when we’ve lost hope and become comfortable with the idea of it being a thing of the past.

Few months ago, I was sharing memories of my basketball days with someone I’d just met. Around the same time, I read a lovely, nostalgic Susbtack post about cricket by Anoop. And that sparked a sudden urge to play basketball again. So I spontaneously splurged on a basketball ring. Being based in a remote village in Goa, I now have the luxury of space that I never had growing up in Delhi. I also have the finances to buy a ring without going broke. So here I was, in my mid-thirties, doing something for my basketball-obsessed inner child.

The ring arrived in a week’s time, all packed and shiny. I got a new Spalding ball, and a pair of Chicago Bulls shorts, for old times’ sake. I haven’t set up the ring yet because there is construction work going on at home, but I can’t wait to unbox and shoot some hoops. A basketball ring at home?! Damn… the 10-year old me would be thrilled!

So much of who I am as a person, at the core, is shaped by the values I imbibed playing basketball. Hard work. Team spirit. Embracing defeat. Understanding that talent can only take you so far. Playing for the joy of it and not just the wins. They say once a sportsperson, always a sportsperson. I can now see why. Sports may have been out of my life for a while, but I’m still a sportsperson at heart.

What’s your favourite sport and when was the last time you played it?