ABCD and Vishnu

I had grand Christmas Eve plans. As I have mentioned before I plan things way before hand. True to my nature I planned for this night for weeks. True to the way things have been with me over the past couple of years my plans had plans of not behaving according to my plans. For those of you who are not Sheldon, my plan bombed, badly and my Christmas Eve plan did end being grand. A grand failure.

Furious and disappointed at the same I decided not to make any Christmas plans. My friend KB called me me up and asked if I would want to go play badminton. One of my other friends SB decided to join us as well. We went to this park near Lake Gardens and started playing. Soon two kids came and at first stood patiently beside us. Then the older kid showed his interest and asked us very politely if he could please play with us. And this is how I was introduced to Vishnu and Nishant aka ABCD.

• Name :  Vishnu and Nishant aka ABCD.
• Age : 8 and 10 respectively.
• Profession : Student of Class II and IV respectively.    
• Location : Lake Gardens Park.       
• Ethnicity : Originally from Bihar. Atleast their parents are.   

They are brothers and little Vishnu idolizes his brother. For some reason I started calling Nishant, ABCD. And the name stuck. 

After we gave ABCD the racket, he very graciously said that he is willing to play in the format of a game. Now this game has several convoluted rules which we came to know as and when the game progressed. The rules were also quite difficult to keep track of because they kept on changing so often. First when my partner dropped the shuttle he shouted "OUT" and came and took hold of the racket. The first time his shuttle dropped he said that there was a "TOUCH" which basically means that the racket touched the shuttle before it dropped. So then he obviously cannot be "OUT" and he said it with a pretty indignant tone.

The next time his shuttle dropped he said that this was "NO PLAY" and hence is is not "OUT" obviously. "NO PLAY" means that he did not make an attempt to hit the shuttle. After much coaxing and shouting and screaming and finger pointing he finally admitted that he infact was "OUT" and handed the racket to my friend. I started playing with my friend and we were having a long rally. At this point he got rather irritated with us and informed us that we will both get "OUT" now, because the way we were playing was so obviously a case of "NO TRY" .In layman terms we were not trying to even get the other one "OUT."  

While I was trying to win my racket back in a tug-of-war match with ABCD suddenly an aeroplane was visible. ABCD and Vishnu left the racket and then just as the plane was above their head threw handful of dust at it. They were sure that when the dust reaches the place their wishes will come true. They were sure that the dust will definitely reach the plane. 

As the two boys waved us goodbye from their swings after we were done for the day, I felt this inner sense of satisfaction. It was an unexpectedly well spent Christmas. Thank you ABCD and Vishnu.