Punjabi Air Hockey

Last night was one of the EAP students' birthday and to celebrate, a bunch of us went down to Mussorie's Landor Bazaar to eat at a nice restaurant. This evening turned out to be one of the funnest evenings I have had in India.

At the restaurant, there ended up being about 30 EAP students (about 3/4 of the total EAP students in India). Naturally, when you have 30 college students there is a lot of drinking and this was no exception. While I don't get drunk, I must admit that watching these 30 students make a fool of themselves was quite entertaining. The restaurant was half restaurant and half bar so the Indian people watched on with amazement and amusement as a group of 30 white people got progressively more and more rambunctious.

When we left, a few of us decided to go to some of the arcades that Mussorie has. now when I say arcade, don't think of those in Mussorie. These arcades are filled with old games from Japan that they could refurbish so they send them to India. Nonetheless, there is one game that never goes out of style that this arcade has: air hockey. At first, just me and the other EAP students were playing. But as we continued to play, there was a crowd of Indians who watched. soon we were playing each other and a huge crowd gathered around the table. The group was mainly Punjabi and soon it was a friendly game of "U.S.A. vs Punjab." I was the star for the American side. I kept winning until they put they're very best against me. The final score was 6-7 (games are played to seven). It was amazingly fun. They were buying all our games, laughing and cheering with every close call, ands screaming with delight when anyone scored.

By the end, they wanted to buy us all dinner and play more. We had to pull ourselves out of their arms in order to leave. In hindsight, I wish I would have had the second dinner and just hung out with them. But regardless, it was really fun. They were all so nice and hospitable just so that they could say they played air hockey with a white guy. At least I know that i will always enjoy that game of Punjabi air hockey...