Freak Injury Specialist

Growing up I have always been what can be descibed as dhadpadya (for lack of one apt word in English :P). I loved to play as a kid, and still do, and most of my injuries stemmed from freak accidents on the field. And then there were some which happened because of my general dhandratpana. Either which way, to this date it is quite unusual for me to be injury free for a long time. If I dont get hurt while playing I could easily cut myself with a knife while slicing vegetables ( and that's why I cook so infrequently - to reduce the probability of such accidents LOL).

In my early years, upto 4th grade or so, I used to play soccer in school during the hour long lunchbreaks. Soccer can get quite a physical game at times and it was commonplace for me to get pushed around or be tripping over someone'e legs, the puny kid that I was. This resulted in a lot of bruised knees ever so often, and a spanking from mom for not being careful while playing served as the clincher in most cases.

For some reason that I cant remember, my loyalties changed next year onwards and I've been a regular on the basketball courts ever since. We were among the lucky ones at Loyola, to have the option of choosing to play on a mud court, a tar court or a cement court but more often than not the mud court was ignored. As I would've liked to, changing the sport did not quite help me avoid injuries. Playing on a tar court I became a little more careful while playing but it could not prevent minor injuries every once in a while like a swollen/numb finger after failing to latch on to a pass correctly. I remember carrying atleast one hurt finger right through high school and the knee and elbow bruises provided some variety and kept things interesting (?).

Fast forward a few years to my first day in Amreeka. I had just landed in the afternoon and was stuck up for lack of company that evening at the place where I was put up temporarily. It was almost the end of summer then and walking out on the patio I saw a bunch of guys playing basketball on the court right across from my apartment. With nothing better to do I decided to join them for a while. All was fun until I got an elbow in the eye and was walking around with a black eye for close to 3 weeks! That was when I learnt that if I'm playing among firangs twice my size, it's not a bad idea to avoid driving in. Lesson learnt, I managed to stay relatively injury free over the next couple of years. However, my over-enthusiasm for the sport gave my roomies something to laugh about at my expense. If only such accidents could dampen my spirit I would've given up playing a long time back :P

Last December I was visiting Pune after 3 years and I knew I had to go do the Sunday morning bball routine with the folks I played with for a few years. So here I was, landed Friday morning and off to the courts Sunday morning. When I'd enquired earlier I was told that these guys still played at 7 am, what I forgot was 7 am was IST .. stretchable time. Sure enough by 8 am everyone was there and we had a good game going on. While playing I got fouled on and came down very hard, with a slashed knee, bleeding elbow and the index and middle fingers on my right hand twice their usual size. Even that did not stop me from continuing to play with the guys because I was so damn excited to be playing. When I showed up home in that state after the game though, mom, as expected, went 'काय, एवढा घोडा झालास तरी जरा लक्ष देउन खेळता येत नाही का रे?'

I brushed off the injuries avoiding visiting the doctor for something so minor. I knew the bruises would heal in a week's time and was hoping that the swelling on my fingers would subside in similar time. However when at the end of 2 weeks the swelling showed no signs of dying down I was dragged to the docs. It was confirmed that there was definitely no fracture on the fingers and that it was more of a tendon/ligament stress. I was advised frequent fomentation to help heal the fingers, if only I remembered to do it while I was home;) So it happened with me neglecting, things never got better and I left for here with 2 swollen fingers, hauling my suitcases with great difficulty.

It took close to 4 months for the swelling to subside and now my fingers are (almost) back to their normal size. I hope my long list of injuries takes a long stop after this last one. Till then I'll keep playing the only way I know, hard :)