In my schooling in and around 1995, I used to have flair for sports and games. We used to play cricket quite often and in the indoor games Carrom Board, Chess, Business etc were the frequent ones. Still my thirst for games probed me to do more. More over most of the games needed at least two players and I wondered on realizing that there were very few solo games. Summer was at its peak then and although I was willing to play more Cricket in hot sun, none of my friends dared to do so. So basically I was lacking companions then. This led to the exploration of a different version of Golf, that I could come up with.
One day I noticed a Ball Badminton ball lying in my house. My uncle was a serious player of this sport and I realized that may be because I liked the ball type which is quite unique, (with fur kind of threads from center of gravity) I would have brought it home while returning from his place. The ball was not in great shape for Ball Badminton as well.
I wanted to play something with that ball. I initially tried bowling(cricket) with it in a tiny corridor within my home but observed that the ball wasn’t bouncing much even on the floor. Then I tried to practice catches by hitting the ball to the wall but it was not coming back as expected. This proved to me that it doesn’t suit with Cricket type of plays.
I casually went onto our terrace and over there, it suddenly stuck me that I could play something on the lines of Golf. I’ve observed the holes of the pipe openings which were placed for taking down the rain water to the ground floor and there by to the drainage. I quickly developed the idea and covered these pipe openings with the pieces of coconut outer linings, which were placed in terrace for drying them under the sun. So this way I could create the hole kind of target. I then framed rules to myself that from a distance I need to aim for the target and kick the Ball Badminton Ball with foot. If it misses I’ll miss out on the points and have to retry from the current location of the ball. This turned out to be an exciting game for me. Many a time, lot of skill was required to hit the ball right into the hole. In some instances I was missing it by a whisker, adding to the challenge.
I got quickly addicted to this Folf (football + golf) and was playing for hours without getting bored. I later came to know that many of my neighbours wondered on what I was doing on the terrace and my histrionics of joy, sorrow, talking to myself confused them 😀 Once, one of my uncles told me that he saw me jumping in joy on terrace from a far distance and came down to our house to know what happened. He gave a weird look after knowing the reason behind my happiness 😀 Nevertheless Folf would remain as a sweet memory for me. I later introduced it to my friends and we played it in group as well 🙂
Many of us don’t have the privilege of playing Golf. So this is a jugaad, around golf to experience similar thrill. Do try it and let me know how you feel about it.