The Optimist Jump
I remember a game that I used to play when I lived in Hubli. It was not exactly a game in the sense that there were no rules. All that one had to was to try out innovative and novel types of jumps.
Our favorite haunt was a vacant house in Forest Colony. The house was not very high and by the time I moved to our new house in Deshpande Nagar I was what you can call a pro in this monkey business. In fact I could now jump from the rooftops of ordinary houses!!! Not bad for a 9th standard kid eh… ( a bit of an exaggeration, but i was pretty good )
Now comes the interesting part.
The jump that broke my hand…
My friend Akshay had come from Bijapur where he was studying and in an attempt to relive the good old days we decided to have a go at a particularly difficult jump. There was a tree in front of our house that had a very inviting branch. It was about 15 feet high and perfectly horizontal to the road. Now the jump involved climbing up the neighboring wall and diving down to the branch and grabbing it in mid air. Akshay was at least almost a foot taller than me and an year elder and he did the jump with some difficulty. However I couldn’t do it no matter how hard I tried. I just couldn’t reach the branch.
But not to be undone I kept trying. (I AM the Optimist after all).
Then I finally managed to make a beauty of a jump and my finger tips brushed the branch. I should have been satisfied, but no, I wanted to take the dangle. Nothing less would make me happy. So I got on the fence and gave one mighty jump. And what a jump that was!!! The best I had ever taken (make that the worst… its aftereffects still give me the jitters) I went soaring through the air, managed to grab the branch and held on. I had done it!!!
Adrenaline surged through my veins. I held on. But my feet would have none of it. It continued to swing and completed a semi circle dragging me along with it. In the battle between my hand and my feet, the feet sadly won… it dragged me along with it and then stopped midair for what seemed an eternity. Then began the descent. And this time my head took the initiative. Talk of bad leadership. However thanks to the lucky interference of my hand the head was saved from a great ordeal. But my hands had made a great sacrifice in the process. It BROKE on the left and left a painful swell on the right!!!
And That, my friend was the story of my broken hand.
Our favorite haunt was a vacant house in Forest Colony. The house was not very high and by the time I moved to our new house in Deshpande Nagar I was what you can call a pro in this monkey business. In fact I could now jump from the rooftops of ordinary houses!!! Not bad for a 9th standard kid eh… ( a bit of an exaggeration, but i was pretty good )
Now comes the interesting part.
The jump that broke my hand…
My friend Akshay had come from Bijapur where he was studying and in an attempt to relive the good old days we decided to have a go at a particularly difficult jump. There was a tree in front of our house that had a very inviting branch. It was about 15 feet high and perfectly horizontal to the road. Now the jump involved climbing up the neighboring wall and diving down to the branch and grabbing it in mid air. Akshay was at least almost a foot taller than me and an year elder and he did the jump with some difficulty. However I couldn’t do it no matter how hard I tried. I just couldn’t reach the branch.
But not to be undone I kept trying. (I AM the Optimist after all).
Then I finally managed to make a beauty of a jump and my finger tips brushed the branch. I should have been satisfied, but no, I wanted to take the dangle. Nothing less would make me happy. So I got on the fence and gave one mighty jump. And what a jump that was!!! The best I had ever taken (make that the worst… its aftereffects still give me the jitters) I went soaring through the air, managed to grab the branch and held on. I had done it!!!
Adrenaline surged through my veins. I held on. But my feet would have none of it. It continued to swing and completed a semi circle dragging me along with it. In the battle between my hand and my feet, the feet sadly won… it dragged me along with it and then stopped midair for what seemed an eternity. Then began the descent. And this time my head took the initiative. Talk of bad leadership. However thanks to the lucky interference of my hand the head was saved from a great ordeal. But my hands had made a great sacrifice in the process. It BROKE on the left and left a painful swell on the right!!!
And That, my friend was the story of my broken hand.
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