Mothers-in-Law Can be Good

No. The title is not an oxymoron. Or is it?

There are two kinds of mothers-in-law. One is the boy's mother and the other, the girl's mother. If the boy had grown up as a "mother's boy", his bride may run into problems, not because of the new mother but because of the stupid boy. There is no such speciality for a girl. The girl can only be "father's girl", and that has never been an aberration. Neither is if she is a "mother's girl".

This mother-in-law issue is a myth. God knows who created it. As regards the myth that women are the weaker sex, man created it and women being gullible, although much stronger, fell for it. Here man gained, or he thought, the fool! But who is the gainer in creating a monster out of the mother-in-law? More often than not, it is the boy's mother who is made out to be so, right?

To get back from this meaningless digression, my mother-in-law turned out to be a motivator for me. You see, she insulted me before she qualified to be my mother-in-law, as I was yet not married to her daughter. That requires a little background, and that is that this lady was a good badminton player.

Those days, that is when I was in my early 20s, I used to pride a teeny weeny bit about myself as not too bad a sportsman. But I had not ever played badminton till then. Somehow I never came across badminton as in shuttlecock, though I had played some ball-badminton just before my teens. But when I played badminton against her in a makeshift court, she beat the hell out of me. That was okay. But then she declared that I would never defeat her in badminton. That was a bit too much. I told her, "Ma'am, next time we meet I will beat you". Soon I proceeded on posting.

I landed up in a place where badminton was a regular game in the Officers Mess. I picked up the game soon enough. Pretty quickly I was accepted among the officers as the third-best in line after Maj Jagdish Chander (who later rose to be a Lt Gen and headed that Corps as its Director General) and Lt Satish.

One day, I told Major Jagdish. "Sir, I want to play a serious game with you. I want to know where I stand in the game". He laughed. But after a lot of cajoling, he agreed, sort of willy-nilly. He beat me 15-0, 15-0. Those days the scoring in badminton was that way. And to score a point, one had to be serving. Otherwise, it is only "service over". So it was much tougher to play!

I found myself running around the court like a mad dog retrieving the shuttles that he smashed or placed/dropped deftly. Whatever I tried, including what I thought were well-placed smashes, all seemed to be falling at his arm's reach. For good measure, he was a left-hander. He didn't seem to be moving at all! Just standing there at the centre of the court and reaching out! For all my might, he never broke a sweat.

Game up and I, sweating profusely, asked him at what level he had played. I felt he was no ordinary player. It turned out that he was Delhi State Junior Champion and underwent proper coaching! Phew! Then onward I made him my Guru. He, in turn, obliged by teaching me the proper techniques and tricks. He coached me on and off the court. I became better and better as certified by him, himself.

Then I met my yet-to-be-mother-in-law again in Delhi, within a year of our last meeting. She watched me playing with others. Having displayed my "talent" thus, I "requested" her to play a game with me. She was supposed to have been a Junior Champion in Nagpur during her days. Those days Nagpur had produced National Champions in the game. In any case, she was good. Over a week of my stay at Delhi then, she somehow had her racquet not being okay or she herself not being okay and so on. The week went in excuses. In short, she never played against me! 

Whenever I think of that, I still smile inside. However, all credit to her for she motivated me by insulting me with her thought of her own invincibility. And I became a player of sufficient respectability, locally though.