Thursday, May 17, 2007

Chronicles of Injeria - Squash, lights and the Gym door

It was like so many movies where they show a house which you newly occupy and you thought you know all over the place, but then you find a door which is always rumored about, but you never know till that time. After staying in our house in Charlotte for about 5 months, I always thought I know the apartment well. (Though there is still a path which I have never used. But we will talk about that later) And our apartment complex is a simple one. Mailbox near the entrance. A small gym and a laundry to the left of the mailbox and a swimming pool with 4 feet max depth beside that. Not to forget they are still getting the pool ready for summer though summer is here already. I hope it will be ready when its summer. The office lies behind our apartment in the deisgn of a roman building with pillars and there are apartment buildings all around us. So obviously there was nothing else to see. Atleast thats what I thought before Sripathy called me and asked me for the key to the Squash court in our apartments. Sripathy actually lives in his own house very far from our place. So we were little confused how he would know about our apartment. But I was wondering if the rumors were true and a secret squash court indeed lay hidden. The secret door to the squash court was found behind the Information office and to our surprise it got opened with our key to the Gym. So there really is some conspiracy behind (inside) this place. Then it hit me.

[+/-] Specialis Revelio

There is some reason for that roman pillars. Why would an Apartment office in US have roman Pillars? Also there must be something about the swimming pool next to the apartment office which is always kept dry. But while I was trying to figure out the mystery, Sripathy and Ravinder had already started to play Squash. I understood the game very quickly. All they were doing is hitting the ball on the wall. No wonder, the ball was small. It had too much exercise than the players as it kept running all over the place, hitting all the sides and came back to the player who hits it when it comes to their reach. After watching the game for sometime, I got the feeling that I can become a squash player easily. This is one game where you wont have any net or the umpire calling "out". Its always "in". I like that. Then the chance came for me to play. Once I entered the court and closed the glass door behind, there was this strange feeling around me. A perfectly normal looking apartment having office with Roman pillars and a swimming pool which is always dry and there is a cube shaped room where you look yourselves up to hit the ball on the wall. Thats something like 1+2+3 <> 3 and its a mystery. Thats when Viswa hit the ball on the wall, and it bounced from the wall and came towards me. I have to take that ball now. It pitched on the ground once and came right towards my reach and I raised the racket to send the ball back to the ball. And it happened. The lights went off suddenly before I could hit the ball. There was sudden darkness and I realised that it went past me, because it hit the wall at the back. But the ball was no where to be seen as it was pitch dark. The mystery deepened with all the lights except the ones inside the court lit up and I had to leave the place without playing squash. May be the day has not yet arrived to reveal the secret behind the Roman pillars and dry swimming pool.