Tug of war

23rd of April, the eve before the competition, I came to my desk after the evening snacks and was told by Jesal that we had sent a last minute nomination for the tug of war tomorrow. We had seen the mail for the competition much before, but maybe it took us some time to gather the belief and confidence that besides fighting with the Dotnet codes and bugs, we had the brawn to drag 5 men overcoming all their strengths. I was very excited as it’s been a long time since we had any sports competition.

The next day Friday the 24^th of April afternoon, I with few others went with Brendon to help in deciding the place and making necessary arrangements; there for the first time I saw that 2 inches thick brand new rope made of coconut coir, ready to cut your hands.

At around 4.30 pm, all were requested to gather in the parking lot and others to cheer for their teams, though there were no Cheerleaders that we had expected. Being the last nominated team, our match was scheduled last for the preliminary round which had three rounds. As we watched the other teams tug it out, many thoughts were going through our minds, like to remove the shoes for a better grip, tying handkerchief on palms to prevent cuts and for a better grip, holding rope on right or left, getting warmed up and so on. Also, we saw skins peel off from feet, arms being bruised and bleeding. We could over-hear some talks about the wind flow and slope of the floorJ, being factors. But as always strategies only work outside the field, it was all about your brute strength, and we soon realized it when we won our first qualifying round quite comfortably in hardly 5 seconds and also with that we broke the jinx that the particular side was unlucky as every other team lost from that side. Reaching the Finals was only two more rounds away.

The real test came in the Finals, wherein whatever you might have seen or thought of ‘Tug of war’ came true. It was the toughest and the longest tug so far. Sometimes they were dragging us and at other moment we were. We held our position with all the strength left till they gave up. The whole arena was soon filled with euphoria, enthusiasm and chaos. And finally when we pulled the rope over, we were left with fatigue, bruises and pain. But then all the pain and sufferings subsided with the feeling that we have won and with the admiration that we received.

Thanks to the team members, Jesal for leading from the front, Manas, Satya and Ajit for providing the very strong base from behind, to all those who came to witness such a great Tug-of-war event .