After the physically and mentally exhausting match of the previous day, Vijay was looking a lot better at the awards ceremony, though understandably nowhere near 100%. Vijay and Miguel both entered the court upon much anticipation. Both players were heartily congratulated for their efforts. There they both stood on Centre Court... one with an incredible defeat, and one with an amazing victory.
Finally, as Vijay held up the winner's trophy, all his emotions that he had held back for so long had finally poured out uncontrollably in the form of tears. The floodgates of emotions were now open, and as the crowd cheered on loudly, there was hardly a dry eye in the stadium and no one was sitting down. Vijay's friends were also all teary-eyed. They knew the significance of this moment. Vijay Rajagopalan had finally broken out of his winless slump, cleared all expectations and most of all, closed the book on Nisha for good!
Through the course of one match, everyone got to see a young tennis player throw up…and grow up. You never get to see that in one ticket!
A few days later, Roshni called Vijay over to tell him 'some important news'. The two met at Marina Beach.
“Vijay, I have something important to tell you”, says Roshni.
“Yeah, I know”, says Vijay with a knowing smile.
Roshni was shocked. “You do? How?!”
“Anand”
Their eyes met… for a long time ..and the rest …is history!
Good story well scripted. Read all four parts in one go. How about continuing the story and adding more parts ?
ReplyDelete@Ramakrishnan -- Romba nandri sir. Glad you liked it so much. The story is actually based on a real tennis match.
ReplyDeleteIt can't be continued any further as it is now. Winning the match solved all of Vijay's problems. If I want to continue the story, I have to create new problems for him! :-)
Read all the parts - the tennis match read like a live match.
ReplyDeleteI wish you had spared a few lines for Roshni's change of heart. Right now she comes across as an opportunist bi$%&*.
@Purba -- Hmm... never thought of it that way. Nisha was supposed to be the b@#%&*, not Roshni. I figured that I had side-stepped that landmine since Roshni was a childhood friend.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the tennis match. I wanted the story to have Lagaan-like feel to it.
The ending seemed abrupt. After the much dramatized tennis win, the exchange with Roshni seems anti-climactic. If you were to rework it, try to put more feeling into the Vijay-Roshni exchange.
ReplyDeleteOver all it's great! The true success lies in when the reader can't wait to get to the end and looks like you have accomplished that with all of ur readers.
@Neelam.... Thanks again Neelam. Glad you enjoyed the story overall. Roshni was actually a last-minute character that I added, and it was a bit of a struggle to fit her into the story. I felt Vijay deserved more than just winning a tennis match.
ReplyDeleteLove stories were never my strength, so I tried to underplay it (Mani Ratnam style) to make it work.
I thought the story was great. If you really like writing about sports, you should write sports articles. It will very well turn out to be your niche.
ReplyDelete@Narcissist -- Thanks, maybe I will.
ReplyDeleteI read the section as well as the comments. I think that if you were not convinced about Roshni, just leave her out...she could always remain a bystander. Or have some sort of build-up, right now its just way too sudden...
ReplyDeleteAs I said earlier, I quite liked it, so keep writing more and more and more :)
@Siddharth... Thanks for the pointers, glad you liked the story. I'll surely keep that in mind for my next story.
ReplyDelete