Frisbee - the boomerang

 During our days as kids, some games were seasonal for us (My friends and I). And others were like a fad coming in during a time and then going out eventually.  

We played football during monsoons, cricket at other times. Hide and seek, catch and cook never went out of season. We always played, but eventually as we got older it stopped as it was considered for-the-younger-kids kind of game. There was a game called fielding in which we threw the ball hard on a big wall. It rebounded and the person in whose direction it went had to stop it before it rolled to the boundary. It went out after a few years. One-tip cricket was a rage when we were in college. We used to play under a street light pole, which was basically the stumps. At the time, not many cars were parked on the streets, so the streets were relatively free for us to play !! Eventually we stopped that too. (We lost our space to the cars which were parked near the street light pole AND a speed braker was built near it too as if someone from the road department had decided not to let us play !!)

Another such ‘fad’ during our college days was ‘frisbee’. This is what this post is about – the frisbee. I think we first started playing frisbee when our fifth semester engineering exams started!! There was this huge gap of 3-4 days between two exams, so obviously, since we studied only on the last day, the rest of the days were treated more of a ‘normal leave’ than a ‘study leave’. Someone had this idea of playing a relaxing game, instead of something like cricket, which could give us finger injuries !! So frisbee started.

There is a garden in front of my house. We all played there. Playing frisbee is total bliss. Kind of a very liberating feeling !!

Believe me, there are people who cannot throw a frisbee well !! Most of my friends and I did pretty well. When thrown well, it glides beautifully and gracefully. You can throw it straight, fast or slow. You can throw it along the ground so that it just drifts over the grass. You can throw it at an angle upwards or downwards. You can make it just skim (bounce) the ground and rise rapidly again !! You can even make it boomerang back to you or throw it at a steep sideways angle, so that it soars sideways but lands in front - perfectly in a person’s hands !!

Catching a frisbee too gives you a super feeling !! You can catch it with your wrists turned either way. You can catch it side on or in front. You can time your jump or dive to catch. Frisbee catches when taken are as amazingly stylish and satisfying to watch as they are to take !!  And while it doesn’t take very high skills to either throw or catch a frisbee, a reasonable amount of dexterity and nimble footedness is definitely required. Even dogs love to play it !!

All in all a superb game. So one of my old friends was saying that he played frisbee today right after those days. So I threw a frisbee at a high steep upward angle into my memory and those memories came back to me like a boomerang!!