Learning to Play Table Tennis in India

You would think that after spending Christmas in Agra, my most meaningful experience would be visiting the Taj Mahal.  Call me crazy, but instead I'm writing about the time Mr. B, the game room attendant at our hotel, taught me how to play table tennis.

Mr. B playing a round of table tennis with my brother

My mom and I walked around the hotel in the hopes of taking pictures for my future blog post about distribution of wealth in India.  We happened to stumble upon the hotel's game room, which was unoccupied with the exception of the room attendant.  Having no experience with table tennis, my mom and I attempted to volley, and I'm pretty sure we looked ridiculous.  After a few minutes, my mom left the game room to help brother, who wasn't feeling very well.  Within a few seconds, Mr. B grabbed a paddle and said "Let's play!"

Black and white backlit pictures can be pretty cool!  Mr. B is the man closer to the camera, and my brother is on the opposite side of the table

We volleyed for awhile without speaking, and Mr. B got a sense of my numerous weaknesses. After a few minutes, he started giving me tips with hand gestures and two-word English phrases.  It started out with basic adjustments in my grip, swing and strategy. When I stumbled, he would reassure me by saying "It's okay, try again." When I did something right, he would smile profusely and utter a few words of encouragement. Before I knew it, I could smash the ball!  By no means am I good at table tennis now, but I sure am a heck of a lot better than when I started.  Maybe I'm just imagining this, but he seemed genuinely pleased as I improved.  When my brother felt better and came to the game room, he and Mr. B played too, as you can tell from all the pictures.  Before leaving the game room, we shook Mr. B's hand and thanked him for playing, which seemed to catch him off guard.  The three of us had a great time! 

Backlit picture round II

When I travel, the unifying power of sport never fails to amaze me.  This past summer, I went to Honduras to set up temporary, free medical clinics in the rural countryside with Global Medical Brigades at Rice University.  One of my most meaningful experiences there was also sport-related.   The gist of the story was that at the time, I spoke absolutely no Spanish aside from a few basic phrases.  After my rotation teaching children about dental hygiene ended, I threw a ball around with some of the kids. Although we couldn't speak the same language, we communicated with facial expressions and body language.  The game evolved as we developed unspoken rules that we understood perfectly-- for example, in certain rounds we would have to toss the ball in specific patterns, and we even added a monkey-in-the-middle component!  Our laughter and smiles were so infectious that a bunch of other kids came to play. Although we were separated by a language barrier, the sport brought us all together without words.  In that moment, I felt so connected with kids that had such different backgrounds from me.  Sport helped us understand each other, and I'll always be grateful for that experience.

Within five minutes of publishing this post for the first time, I found out that using the game room was actually supposed to cost us money.  Mr. B didn't charge us anything for his time or the equipment.  In tourism-based cities like Agra, people will do anything to get a few extra rupees out of you.  In fact, we had a very unpleasant experience at the Taj involving people trying to pressure us to pay for their goods/services.  Mr. B not billing us is a huge deal in India, and I'm in total awe right now, humbled by the memories we shared.  While these moments were so small and seemingly insignificant, they were just as grand as seeing the Taj, to me.  I'm privileged to be able to call Mr. B my friend.  

At the end of the day, no matter where we're from, we can all enjoy a good laugh with friends (or near-strangers alike) over a fun game of ball :)

Merry Christmas, everyone!