It's been well over a month since I posted anything, and I lay the blame squarely upon my own shoulders. I believe in taking responsibility for one's actions (and inaction) and this is the time for me to stand up and be counted. Or read, as is the case with a blog.
A major reason for my not posting anything in a while is because, well, I haven't got anything going on in my life worth posting about. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise that even for this post, I go back more than 2 months for my inspiration. It has been on my mind for a while to write something about this, and yet, I've not felt like it all this time. So here goes.
As all tales begin, this one too begins in a far far land where the sky was blue, the rivers were clear and the grass was green and available in plenty within walking distance for the subjects of the kingdom. And I realize that that's about how far I can carry the whole analogy thing, so suffice to say that I'm referring to NIT-Trichy where we (G3W) had gone down for their annual cultural fest, Festember. We managed to make quite a wad between us totally, but then, it isn't always about the money is it? No, sometimes it's about what the title says.
The event in question was Scrabble, and along with my illustrious cricketer-first, scrabbler-next partner Naresh, I daresay we gave ourself quite a chance of placing in the event. The prelims were written, and as is usual it was the standard mixture of Scrabble boards, a bit of anagrams and the like. Around this point of time, we were doing 9-5 working hours, so most prelims were a blur, with the next event already coming up to think about. But again, prelims qualifying was never supposed to be a problem. Character-challenge Moment One.
As the papers were being totaled to find out who the 6 finalists would be, the score we had put up seemed to be sliding steadily and easily backwards. 5 teams ahead already and quite a bunch of papers left. We watched as each one fell way short, or just short of our total and kept remembering to breathe in the interim. It came down to one last paper, and as their total kept getting bigger, our chances of qualifying got slimmer. But you know, I wouldn't put this post up if we didn't have something to do with the finals as well. And so, it gives me great pleasure to reveal that this last paper fell short of ours by 1 point. 149 to our 150. Game On.
You would think that that was the inspiration-moment that you see in most movies - like in Gilli (Athadu for my Telugu friends) when Trisha misses her flight to America to come and watch Vijay's Kabadi match. Sadly, that wasn't to be, as our prelims paper didn't quite generate the same feelings in us as Trisha, nor is Scrabble Kabadi. The first round in the finals was Clabbers, which, if you are clever you might notice, is an anagram of Scrabble. And hence, all anagrams of any word were allowed in this round. To put it simply, you could play gtocziy on the board, since it is a perfectly valid anagram of Zygotic. This whole messing up concept was looking pretty fine till the last two moves. Actually, they became the last two moves plainly because they were 'Bingos' which is where you use up all the tiles in your rack, and get a 50-point bonus for doing so. Ergo, the opposition finishes off 14 tiles in two moves, gets a 100 points outta nowhere, and it's a 120-odd points defeat in the first game. This is bad in any circumstance, but it is definitely not good in a three-match round-robin. Character-challenge Moment Two.
And so, we go into the second match, to play the other team at the bottom. This is normal Scrabble, and all is fine until, 'Bingo' again. For them, of course. I even remember the word, bloody Chromite, I didn't know Chromite was even a compound, let alone a word! After making a mental note to brush up on my Chemistry, we calculated our total deficit, including the first match, and saw ourselves staring at -148 points. This is where the straight faces and the hammering hearts come out. Also, Character-challenge Moment Three.
Now, there are two ways to get yourself out of a hole. One is to keep digging, and find yourself going deeper inside, or you can stop digging, take a deep breath, and then try to pull the other person also into the hole. Which is precisely what we did. First, some prudent use of the Js and the Xs got us ahead in the match, and then playing the vaguest two-letter words that both of us knew definitely existed, in the hope of getting challenged. We made quite a bit of free 5-pointers in them challenges, not to mention keeping track of their time down to the precise micro-second, so that they ran out of it quite a while before the tiles were done. Excess time carried a penalty too, and all things considered, we won the game, and got ourselves a good 4o-odd points positives in the bargain. Here's where the three-match round robin concept got useful. Only 2 teams were on two wins, and they were going to play each other. So, only one person ends up on 3 wins. That left the winner of our next match, ironically with the same opposition we had played Clabbers with, guaranteed a third place, with the possibility of a second if one of the top 2 got mauled by the other. Thankfully, one of the top 2, was Nush and Sandeep, the other IIT team. It isn't Rocket Science, but if they beat their opponents handsomely, and we beat ours as handsomely, that second place was ours.
It's not like BPL's Soccer Sunday, where, when the Big Four are playing each other, everyone knows what's going on in the other match. Here, you concentrate on your game, and don't even hope that things are going fine in the other match. The game proceeded quite satisfactorily, not a huge margin, but we kept our noses ahead. It didn't look like we were heading for a big win, whereas we definitely needed one, to wipe out our overall deficit of -90. Slowly though, the previous game's strategy of deep breath-think clear-pull other person in began to work. There's nothing quite as beautiful as closing the board out with 'ug' and 'ch' and 'li' and leaving the opposition nothing to work with. Which worked quite effectively.We did not have a Bingo at any point in the game, or for that matter, the tournament. Yet, the closed-board game was bringing in the 20s and 30s quite well, and that was fine by us. As the tiles ran out, our lead kept getting ever so bigger. Eventually, it was done. Bingo-less, without any fancy words on triples or double, we finished with a 120 point positive from the game, a total of +30 overall. But was it enough?
We needn't have bothered. Nush and Sandeep had decimated the other team by around 150 points. All we needed to do was win, and we would've got second. As it turned out, we did much more than that, thank you very much.
It may not be the Natwest Finals Yuvraj-Kaif chase. It may not be United's 5-3 second-half demolition of Spurs from 0-3 down. But it was a comeback nevertheless, and comebacks are always sweet. For what it does is, it builds character. Tenacity, hope, self-belief and such. As I said before, it's not always about the money.
However, 700 bucks a head does go quite a long way in ensuring that the Character is Built.
A major reason for my not posting anything in a while is because, well, I haven't got anything going on in my life worth posting about. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise that even for this post, I go back more than 2 months for my inspiration. It has been on my mind for a while to write something about this, and yet, I've not felt like it all this time. So here goes.
As all tales begin, this one too begins in a far far land where the sky was blue, the rivers were clear and the grass was green and available in plenty within walking distance for the subjects of the kingdom. And I realize that that's about how far I can carry the whole analogy thing, so suffice to say that I'm referring to NIT-Trichy where we (G3W) had gone down for their annual cultural fest, Festember. We managed to make quite a wad between us totally, but then, it isn't always about the money is it? No, sometimes it's about what the title says.
The event in question was Scrabble, and along with my illustrious cricketer-first, scrabbler-next partner Naresh, I daresay we gave ourself quite a chance of placing in the event. The prelims were written, and as is usual it was the standard mixture of Scrabble boards, a bit of anagrams and the like. Around this point of time, we were doing 9-5 working hours, so most prelims were a blur, with the next event already coming up to think about. But again, prelims qualifying was never supposed to be a problem. Character-challenge Moment One.
As the papers were being totaled to find out who the 6 finalists would be, the score we had put up seemed to be sliding steadily and easily backwards. 5 teams ahead already and quite a bunch of papers left. We watched as each one fell way short, or just short of our total and kept remembering to breathe in the interim. It came down to one last paper, and as their total kept getting bigger, our chances of qualifying got slimmer. But you know, I wouldn't put this post up if we didn't have something to do with the finals as well. And so, it gives me great pleasure to reveal that this last paper fell short of ours by 1 point. 149 to our 150. Game On.
You would think that that was the inspiration-moment that you see in most movies - like in Gilli (Athadu for my Telugu friends) when Trisha misses her flight to America to come and watch Vijay's Kabadi match. Sadly, that wasn't to be, as our prelims paper didn't quite generate the same feelings in us as Trisha, nor is Scrabble Kabadi. The first round in the finals was Clabbers, which, if you are clever you might notice, is an anagram of Scrabble. And hence, all anagrams of any word were allowed in this round. To put it simply, you could play gtocziy on the board, since it is a perfectly valid anagram of Zygotic. This whole messing up concept was looking pretty fine till the last two moves. Actually, they became the last two moves plainly because they were 'Bingos' which is where you use up all the tiles in your rack, and get a 50-point bonus for doing so. Ergo, the opposition finishes off 14 tiles in two moves, gets a 100 points outta nowhere, and it's a 120-odd points defeat in the first game. This is bad in any circumstance, but it is definitely not good in a three-match round-robin. Character-challenge Moment Two.
And so, we go into the second match, to play the other team at the bottom. This is normal Scrabble, and all is fine until, 'Bingo' again. For them, of course. I even remember the word, bloody Chromite, I didn't know Chromite was even a compound, let alone a word! After making a mental note to brush up on my Chemistry, we calculated our total deficit, including the first match, and saw ourselves staring at -148 points. This is where the straight faces and the hammering hearts come out. Also, Character-challenge Moment Three.
Now, there are two ways to get yourself out of a hole. One is to keep digging, and find yourself going deeper inside, or you can stop digging, take a deep breath, and then try to pull the other person also into the hole. Which is precisely what we did. First, some prudent use of the Js and the Xs got us ahead in the match, and then playing the vaguest two-letter words that both of us knew definitely existed, in the hope of getting challenged. We made quite a bit of free 5-pointers in them challenges, not to mention keeping track of their time down to the precise micro-second, so that they ran out of it quite a while before the tiles were done. Excess time carried a penalty too, and all things considered, we won the game, and got ourselves a good 4o-odd points positives in the bargain. Here's where the three-match round robin concept got useful. Only 2 teams were on two wins, and they were going to play each other. So, only one person ends up on 3 wins. That left the winner of our next match, ironically with the same opposition we had played Clabbers with, guaranteed a third place, with the possibility of a second if one of the top 2 got mauled by the other. Thankfully, one of the top 2, was Nush and Sandeep, the other IIT team. It isn't Rocket Science, but if they beat their opponents handsomely, and we beat ours as handsomely, that second place was ours.
It's not like BPL's Soccer Sunday, where, when the Big Four are playing each other, everyone knows what's going on in the other match. Here, you concentrate on your game, and don't even hope that things are going fine in the other match. The game proceeded quite satisfactorily, not a huge margin, but we kept our noses ahead. It didn't look like we were heading for a big win, whereas we definitely needed one, to wipe out our overall deficit of -90. Slowly though, the previous game's strategy of deep breath-think clear-pull other person in began to work. There's nothing quite as beautiful as closing the board out with 'ug' and 'ch' and 'li' and leaving the opposition nothing to work with. Which worked quite effectively.We did not have a Bingo at any point in the game, or for that matter, the tournament. Yet, the closed-board game was bringing in the 20s and 30s quite well, and that was fine by us. As the tiles ran out, our lead kept getting ever so bigger. Eventually, it was done. Bingo-less, without any fancy words on triples or double, we finished with a 120 point positive from the game, a total of +30 overall. But was it enough?
We needn't have bothered. Nush and Sandeep had decimated the other team by around 150 points. All we needed to do was win, and we would've got second. As it turned out, we did much more than that, thank you very much.
It may not be the Natwest Finals Yuvraj-Kaif chase. It may not be United's 5-3 second-half demolition of Spurs from 0-3 down. But it was a comeback nevertheless, and comebacks are always sweet. For what it does is, it builds character. Tenacity, hope, self-belief and such. As I said before, it's not always about the money.
However, 700 bucks a head does go quite a long way in ensuring that the Character is Built.
