No, not the relieving shot in the arm in the sense that it is used, but quite literally. Anyway, about that idiom, the first time I read it, I was slightly bemused for it didn't make sense for someone to have gotten shot in the arm to feel better. They could have picked better anyway for even if the long term results are good, picturing an injection as a sign of assistance doesn't work very much.
Coming back to the point, this is to write about what happened to me today morning. I am located close to a godforsaken place called Bangalore University which pulls our country's already entrenched higher education system further down. It is but a mere excuse for handing out a degree.
My father and I frequent upon their running track for our dose of morning exercise. Also, students training to becoming physical training instructors of tomorrow, train there today. It so happened that I'd cycled there today and while my dad proceeded to run on the track, I endeavoured to go around it(outside of it) in circles on my cycle. One such physical training trainee stopped me half way, came around, and without saying a word proceed to rap me on the shoulder. I was completely taken aback. He then proceeded to tell me, outraged at my having brought the bike to the running track, to get off the bike, likening himself to a cop of sorts( Yeah, the bad kind). I proceeded, still dazed and confused, to call him an idiot. Then, a mob of trainees formed around and one of them chucked my cycle away like it were trash to be discarded. Luckily, one sensible trainee and my calm as ever father were around to see that I didn't get beat up.
I wasn't defiling their track. Even if it was a transgression, I am not some creature you can't communicate with, which would understand only blows. I shudder to think of all the children at the disposal of these uncouth barbarians tomorrow. They take it that they are rejects in every walk of life and enrol at the worst course in the worst university around as a last ditch. This is how we treat sportsmen and athleticism in our country. These are the values on which they are bred.
However, I learnt a valuable lesson. Never should one be confrontational in the face of a battle he has not a chance of winning. And besides, when somebody shouts out in barbaric anger, its much better to yield than to resist. Weathers the storm does the grass stalk that yields and not the deep rooted tree that resists.
Coming back to the point, this is to write about what happened to me today morning. I am located close to a godforsaken place called Bangalore University which pulls our country's already entrenched higher education system further down. It is but a mere excuse for handing out a degree.
My father and I frequent upon their running track for our dose of morning exercise. Also, students training to becoming physical training instructors of tomorrow, train there today. It so happened that I'd cycled there today and while my dad proceeded to run on the track, I endeavoured to go around it(outside of it) in circles on my cycle. One such physical training trainee stopped me half way, came around, and without saying a word proceed to rap me on the shoulder. I was completely taken aback. He then proceeded to tell me, outraged at my having brought the bike to the running track, to get off the bike, likening himself to a cop of sorts( Yeah, the bad kind). I proceeded, still dazed and confused, to call him an idiot. Then, a mob of trainees formed around and one of them chucked my cycle away like it were trash to be discarded. Luckily, one sensible trainee and my calm as ever father were around to see that I didn't get beat up.
I wasn't defiling their track. Even if it was a transgression, I am not some creature you can't communicate with, which would understand only blows. I shudder to think of all the children at the disposal of these uncouth barbarians tomorrow. They take it that they are rejects in every walk of life and enrol at the worst course in the worst university around as a last ditch. This is how we treat sportsmen and athleticism in our country. These are the values on which they are bred.
However, I learnt a valuable lesson. Never should one be confrontational in the face of a battle he has not a chance of winning. And besides, when somebody shouts out in barbaric anger, its much better to yield than to resist. Weathers the storm does the grass stalk that yields and not the deep rooted tree that resists.
9 comments:
Would I be wandering too far astray in hypothesizing that in a parallel universe, we'd be reading a blog post from you about how people can't adhere to rules and about that one incident when you and a group of sprightly like-minded youths bravely ensured that a sad sap riding a cycle in (God forbid!) a walking track would never commit the sin again?
Hmmm. I'd thought of that.
Besides, I merely defied the word of the law, not its spirit. I was cycling outside their precious track.
The world is as one sees it. If one assumes any human would not prefer a simple or stern verbal request to stay away to blows on the shoulder, I pity him.
Exercising violence without warning is certainly not adhering to rules either. So there is hypocrisy in your parallel universe. I guess people who take justice into their hands, like the ones in Bihar who pour petrol into people's eyes for petty crimes, would be superheroes in that universe. Thank God I am in this one.
Haha I'd have paid for a video or something of when you called that man an idiot :)
Relax, man. Be thankful that nothing too serious happened...
Calling their maashtaar an idiot was probably what got to them.
@ Gullu - I am thankful.
@ Baggy - It was one of those cool dudes from the class who was called idiot. The master is the guy who saved me, I think.
Bangalore university...?? Where??
My father and I, boy; not me and my father.
-- Semicolon and grammar
Kind request: do not add me on your reading list. I would like my privacy.
-- Colon
@Shashi Thank You
Sorry about that. Pretty dumb of me not to catch that seeing as how you changed url.
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