This post is dedicated to one Mr. Ishan Gupta who took one of my eccentricities - the following one in fact - and turned it into a most hilarious topic of conversation.
Back in the good ol' days, when I was five or six, the seeds were sown. A lot of kids, when they are kids, observe certain 'symmetries' and behave accordingly weird. Stuff like walking on lines, walking in squares, walking on one's tip-toes, skipping certain steps of a staircase: all of which would seem completely pointless to a rational mind, and yet would be as law for a kid in his world.
Most such sown seeds, give rise to plants that die early, due to the child undergoing a process called "coming of age". Unlike most such plants, this one did not die out; it merely "came of age" itself, or in common terms, it evolved. This, is the Ritual of the Race.
Stage 1 - Germination
It all began with my brother and I joining the auto man who'd take us to school and back when I was five. The earliest form of the Race was simple: get to the auto first in the morning, and get back home first from where the auto drops you in the evening.
Stage 2 - Survival of the Fittest
Due to the complexity of the grography (read, one basement and five flights of stairs) and the ambiguity in start and finish lines and times, the Race was not only about who was faster. We both had to play to our strengths. I was the faster and the early-riser, whereas my brother was the stronger. It turns out that speed NEVER mattered. Being the early riser, I would esily win the morning race. Being the stronger, my bro would never let me enter the house first: he'd physically pull me and leave me behind!
Stage 3 - Old age
By now, the plant had grown old, and it was time to shed some of its life force. The morning issue of the race died out just like all other habits. The evening issue however, was in for the first stage of evolution: The Next Generation...
Stage 4 - Evolution
A new rule entered the Race! It was the definition of the finish line. Now, I was approximately in the third grade, my bro in fifth. My contribution to the rule was that the winner would be declared as the first person who shouted "FIRST!" My bro's contribution was that you had to be inside the house for the shout to be valid.
Stage 5 - The Defining Moment I
By now, our Race was an advanced life form capable of being fine-tuned to perfection, which each tuning leading to various strategies etc. The problem with the last rule was that there was no way of defining how inside was required before you could be eligible to shout FIRST! My bro found an easy workaround. By default, you need to be complegely inside the house (with both feet in, not on the doormat). Otherwise, just declare a custom finish line and use that.
This led to the infamous ONE-LEG-ON-MAT format. My bro would should ONE-LEG-ON-MAT and then shout FIRST! while holding me outside the door and preventing me from coming in.
Stage 6 - The Starting Line
These rules fit all very well, so long as we knew the starting point as when the Auto stops at the apartment gate. But with the Race turning so much fun, we started having it even when one would just go to the Provisions store. Now, how could that be a race when one person's still in? Thus came the race-initiation rule! A race begins when any one person travels outside the house and the balcony. Tis rule didn't affect the Race much in terms of its usage, but it prevented the 'surprise strategy' where one would take a step out, step back in, and shout FIRST! claiming a 'win'.
Stage 7 - ... the Present ...
We finally come to the last rule, the one that edged out the ONE-LEG-ON-MAT format as a redundant part of the Race. The 3rd Gen Race came about as a simple thing of needing to prove that your opponent has heard you shout FIRST! So 'rigorous' is the proof required that if one covers his ears with his hands, he can't hear a thing. This rule caused both of us to hold our ears and at the same time, get the other person's hands off. By now, the Race has evolved to such a degree that for the past nine years it hasn't been evolving, except in the numerous strategies employed (see Appendix).
Conclusion.
For the past one year or so, I've been meaning to write down The Race Files, to document the evolutionary process of the Race, as we had grown up.
Appendix - Present strategies
- Stand inside. Prevent opponent from entering. Use both hands to get one ear free. Shout FIRST!
- Enter quietly. Creep upstairs where opponent is reading/pretending to study/studying etc. Surprise him with the Shout!
- While opponent enters quietly etc (read above), and you are the one upstairs, hold your ears and await his shout. When he shouts, expecting victory, he does not keep his ears covered. You shout then!
- Hold one ear on your one shoulder, and using that free hand disarm the opponent. Now shout FIRST!
- When opponent is closing his ears, ask him a question. If he answers, it proves that he can hear through his hands, so shout FIRST!
