This incident happened when I was working with HAL.
On one Sunday morning, I was playing basket ball in the court which is located in sprawling HAL grounds.
Being a novice player, I was hardly able to basket the ball once in ten throws from a distance of 10 feet.
While I was trying hard to improve the throw, a gentleman in his late forties entered the court. Seeing his pot belly and heavily built body, I was wondering if he could even walk properly, let alone play basket ball. He asked me if he could join me for a while.
I offered him the ball. He pressed the ball to see if it has enough air pumped in it. After a hard look at the ball, he started moving away from the basket. When he crossed the mid-court line, I was pretty sure that his throw will not even go towards the basket board.
With a seemingly trained posture, he took position with his hands firmly holding the ball. His eyes were firm on the goal - the basket. In a swift move, he softly threw ball which rose high in to the sky.
I witnessed a perfect parabola as if it is straight out of kinematics chapter of 9th standard physics text book. THE BALL JUST WENT STRAIGHT IN TO THE BASKET. I couldn't believe what I just saw. In amazement, I passed the ball once again to him.
He made some 10-15 throws. All went straight in to basket. NOT EVEN A SINGLE ONE MISSED.
NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER. Lesson learnt..!!
P.S: This man came to ground often. In one conversation he told me that he was former basketball captain for HAL team in the past.
