You probably trying to figure out what the title means, it has so many meanings actually so I’ll get back to it towards the latter part of the article.

Before we start make sure you hold on to something because the journey we are going to take has many ups and downs but it’s undoubtedly truly worth it.

It was a cloudy afternoon on the 20th of August 2019. I was seated at the cafeteria in ICBT Campus where I receive my higher education. I was a little concerned about my participation in sports since I haven’t engaged in any sports activities since I had left school. As I’ve been doing sports for the past 8 years consistently, it left an uneasy feeling since I stopped. So when I was in the cafeteria Rtr. Naleef who was a close friend of mine came and I brought this topic up. So he suggested to join the Rotaract Club of Colombo Mid Town since they engage in futsal, basketball, cricket and many other extracurricular activities. So I thought about it and finally decided to join.

So I attended the Mid Town open day on the 22nd of August which was held in ICBT and got myself registered.

And that’s where everything started….

Since then I’ve come a long way as an individual, a sportsman and as a person in society.

In the beginning it was a bit funny as my first event was to clean the wellawatte beach. I told my parents this and just like any typical Asian parent they joked telling me to clean my room first….

But after the beach cleanup I was so pleased with myself after seeing how much of a contribution I had made towards conserving the environment.

And that’s where I thought to myself that I should try and engage in other things as well and not just sports.

Since then I’ve lost count of the number of events I’ve attended and every one of them benefited me in one way or the other.

The people who knew me well enough will tell you that I’m not the best at starting friendly conversation. I was a person who struggled to talk to a small group of people. And that made me a little nervous during the first two meetings. But luckily for me the others in Mid Town weren’t like that and within a few weeks I had quite a lot of people in my contact list.

9 months in Rotaract has given me a lorry load of memories like the hopper night, beach cleanups, after meeting and the list is endless. But the one that please me the most was the RCL journey I experienced this year.

To be honest with you I didn’t think I would be able to participate at all due to the heavy competition that existed for almost all the sports in Mid Town. When I went for the futsal selections I was amused to see so many players who were so good at the game.

And for basketball there were two teams for IRBT and that will give you an idea on how I was feeling for a new recruit.

When the RCL teams were released I had a quick check and was delighted to see my name in the futsal team. And I was more surprised when I had found it I had scraped through to the basketball team as well.

The preparations for RCL was truly a memorable time… I use to attend practices in the morning for a sport where kicking the ball was a foul and in the evening to futsal where using the hands was an offense…

Third place for RCL futsal was a great achievement but it still leaves me with a slight disappointment on the manner we lost the semifinals… The third place match was great even though I had an injury towards the latter part of the game 

The following day of futsal was basketball and I left home with no intention of playing due to the injury. But due to unavoidable circumstances one of the team members couldn’t make it so I had to play. We lost the quarter finals in the third extra time which again was disappointing. But that’s the thing about sports, it comes in a full package.

So let’s go back to the beginning… The title… I did all what I can to write this as short as possible but still it’s quite a long article… And when I was requested to write this article, I replied saying “A mountain to write” which also ended up on the top my article

I have so many people I would love to thank for this incredible journey but if I start naming all of them I rather copy the Mid Town membership drive and paste it here. 

Thank you Rotaract Club of Colombo Mid Town for everything and also everybody else out there who was part of this short but amazing journey…

By Rtr. Umar Inthikab | Email:umarinthikab@gmail.com