One experience that I have and would like to share is when I was participating in the SGFI National Basketball Championship and had to travel to a different state around 1200Km away. It was Chhattisgarh that I had to travel to and I hadn’t been there before so I expected to see and learn something new. We stayed at DPS School which had hostels for both boys and girls within the campus itself but the stadium where our matches were supposed to be held was about 10Km from our place of accommodation. There were two teams that travelled with us, one was ourselves, the UNDER-14 team and other was a 19-TEAM. There were matches all day and night since there were a lot of teams and my coach who accompanied me was mostly busy in refereeing the matches. In my hostel room, there were seniors who were permanent residents because they were the members of the National Basketball Association which also happened to be near DPS so players from all over the country were accommodated at DPS. Whenever there was our match, we used to travel with our seniors to the stadium via a bus that helped us in transportation. At first, we didn’t know how we had to commute but our senior did help us. We were informed well in advance as to when our match was scheduled and at what time we had to report at the stadium, where the matches were supposed to be held. On the third day, the U-19 team had their match early in the afternoon so they left with the bus even before we woke up. In the evening, our coach suddenly called up and said that our U-14 match had been re-scheduled and was supposed to be held in half an hour. We got ready, hurried, went down and waited on the gate but then we remembered the bus was wasn’t there and it won’t be coming back anytime soon. I called up my coach but he wasn’t picking up. Now we started to worry as to what we all are going to do as, if we didn’t reach in time for the match then our team would be disqualified and we’d be out of the tournament. I went back to my hostel room and told my seniors as to what we all should do. They realised the intensity of the situation and came along us to the main gate. They told us to wait on the roadside and ask for a lift. We didn’t understand as to what they wanted us to do. So then one of the seniors went up to the roadside and took one of our team players with him. He held his hand parallel to the ground to signal someone to give them a ride. One motorcyclist stopped and agreed to hitch him and our player to the stadium. We all were shocked as to how we are going to do this. But our senior, Aman, told us this was the only way that we can get to the stadium in time, if not then we’d surely be disqualified. I hesitated at first but then agreed in doing so. Our whole team suddenly became a group of hitchhikers wearing jerseys. All of us stood in a line and waited for someone to stop and give us a ride. I was the last one to get a ride but all of us did reach in time at the stadium and played the match. We were lucky enough to win the match despite being extremely tired and playing without a warmup. I would have never done something like this is in Noida as it is very risky to go along with a stranger. I had never done that before and neither do I plan to do it afterwards especially in place like Noida. People of Chhattisgarh turned out to be really helpful and kind by providing help to stranger, which is something I didn’t believe was possible at all. No one in Delhi would give ride to a any stranger simply because they can’t trust each other and this is the case for most of the places in my country and in the world. I got a new experience that people can be kind enough to be trusted upon even if they are strangers. If it wasn’t for the people’s help, we would have been disqualified without even playing.
By: Vedant Gupta
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