My Badminton Days

by Bhaskar Ramchandran, B. Tech, Mech E, H2

I started playing badminton at the age of 12 in our building compound in Matunga

It was a hard cement surface where the net was tied across two buildings and the court was marked by paint on the ground. It usually was doubles as there were quite a few kids who wanted to play.

The wind was not a great factor as the court was hemmed by buildings on 3 sides. Usually, my father would start the session by tying the net across. The racquets were wooden and the shuttles were so expensive that anybody spoiling them with a false stroke would get a hiding. We changed shuttles only when the cork end was left. We were thrilled when someone managed to get a couple of “plastic shuttles” which could be used for weeks.

My first experience on a wooden indoor court was at IIT Bombay. By then I had managed to get a Carlton steel racquet gifted by my brother-in-law who used to travel frequently to Dubai.

I was not used to the wooden indoor court and used to slip and fall quite a few times. Radheshyam Girdharidas (Ch E ’72?), Ramesh Venkateshwaran (Mech ’73), and Suresh Pillay, my class mate, typically played together.

I was the weakest player amongst the four but, due to lack of competition, made the IIT team in ’71.

We (Radheshyam, Ramesh, Suresh and I) travelled to Udaipur for the inter University West Zone badminton tournament.

We were put up in a dormitory in the city. At night it got quite warm and we decided to sleep on the terrace. We took our “holdalls” and spread them next to each other and went to sleep. When I got up in the morning, I was shocked to see that I was still where I was but the other three had moved some 20 feet away and were sleeping. When I asked them what happened, they said, “You bugger, you snore like a dozen pigs, and we just couldn’t bear it.”

That was the first time I realised that I snored and that loudly!

In 1971 the Inter IIT meet was cancelled due to the Indo-Pak war. Subsequently after Radheshyam graduated, Ramesh became the captain, and we travelled to Kharagpur for the inter IIT meet in 1973 where we won. In 1974, we won gold at the Inter IIT meet held in Bombay.

I continued playing badminton at Telco for a while. However, in a few years my heavy smoking affected my breathing and stamina, and I had to stop playing. Badminton is a wonderful, wonderful game and I still watch matches on TV and sometimes share significant badminton news with Ramesh.