2199) My First Boxing Bout in La Martiniere College, Lucknow in 1972, which was my Alma Mater from 1970-1975:
(excerpted from my post on the Pune Martinians Facebook Group, where I had posted this story a couple of years ago):
My First Boxing Bout:
The year was 1972. My dental braces treatment had just finished and I had this beautiful set of teeth, which flashed a smile that would have been the envy of everyone, but my treatment ended right in the middle of the boxing season. Till now I was exempted from boxing. To put it mildly – I was now eligible to box for Lyons House. I was an absolute rookie at boxing and had no idea of how to throw punches, except verbal ones in debating competitions.
Much to my chagrin, I was identified as one of the boxers for boxing bouts scheduled to take place two days later. It fell upon my classmate Henry’s elder brother Michael to coach me, all within the space of one day. He taught me a few moves, made me repeat them, gave me a few punches, when I let my guard down and then he said I was ready.
I protested that how was an hour’s training enough and again tried to make out a case for being exempted from boxing, since my braces treatment had just ended. After all, I had to “protect” my beautiful set of teeth, but I think I have mentioned it before. My protests cut no ice with Michael, who said that I was now ready for the second part.
Throughout the day we ran all along the Gomti river, the outhouses of Mart, etc. I think we must have covered about 8-10 kilometres throughout this run. I was totally exhausted at the end of it and wanted to have a drink of water. My coach would not let me have it. After all, the whole idea was to get dehydrated and weigh in for a weight category lower, to have an advantage over my boxing opponent.
The run ended with us going to the ovens near the College kitchen and wrapped in a blanket, I joined several other guys (read boxers) who were undergoing the same process.
In the evening at the time of weighing in, I was very happy to find out that, I had dehydrated by some five pounds and that, I was to box in the lower category. Unfortunately, my friend who was from Hodson House who was also going to box for the first time also weighed in for the same lesser category as I did.
On the Day of my bout:
Michael who was training a few other boxers from Lyons House, told me to remember the moves he had taught me and that my bout would be a piece of cake for me as my opponent was a rookie boxer himself.
There was a massive crowd of spectators to watch the bouts, including a few girls. I thought to myself – “My God this crowd has come to watch me get massacred. I am too young to die, especially having gone through a painful braces treatment!!”
Then the bell rang for round one. My opponent and I feigned a few punches, hit the other person’s gloves several times, but very few punches landed on our bodies. It was, as if my friend (opponent) & I had tacitly agreed not to “rearrange” our faces, despite the Referee going on shouting “Box”!!! The bell saved us both. I thought, round one was very easy. The next two rounds were indeed going to be a piece of cake, like my coach has said.
However, Michael as my second had other ideas. He gave me a huge firing, followed by a pep talk. He had studied my opponent’s weaknesses (which I must confess, I had not) and told me to keep in mind a few moves.
The bell rang for round two. The shouting and cheering from the spectators ended and unsuspectingly, I walked into a barrage of punches to the face and gut. It seems that my opponent too had been given a pep talk and while I was still thinking about how to go about it, had the “first mover’s advantage”. I must confess that this was the first time that I saw “stars” like the ones which we see in comics, with characters being hit with a “Bam” or a “Kapow” etc.
I took a standing count and thought that my left eye had swollen up and I had taken a split lip. But I told the referee that I was going to continue the bout. The round ended and Michael was in the ring like a shot. His look told me that Lyons was going to lose this bout, but he continued to give me a pep talk and repeated the moves he had suggested at the end of round one.
When round three began, and the cheering had died down, I heard a girl’s voice shouting urgently “Go Lyons. To The End. Bash him up”.
Although it sounded like a blood-thirsty shout, I thought that she was absolutely right.
I was in the House that had a Lion Rampant as its emblem and our motto was “To The End”. I remembered Arthur Conan Doyle’s abridged story of Rodney Stone the boxer, which was in our English Literature curriculum. All within the space of a split second a thought went in my mind – Rodney Stone used to pulverise his opponents bare fisted. I felt my gloves melt away. I am a lion and Rodney Stone is my boxing idol.
I remembered every move that Michael had told me earlier. My unsuspecting opponent walked straight into my plan. We were friends no longer. I weaved, ducked and side-stepped much like Johnny Wakelin’s tribute to Muhammad Ali several years later – “He moves like a butterfly and stings like a bee”. My opponent was mesmerised by my “butterfly-like moves” and he was stung by a “swarm of bees”. If I was seeing stars in round two, he was experiencing a trip to outer space watching several super-novas explode. He too took a standing count and was on the ropes most of the time.
At the end of the round, Michael was very pleased. With so much shouting and cheering going around, I was the clear winner. I was told later that round three was the best that they had seen that evening and I had handled myself as a fine boxer. Of the six or seven Lyons House boxers who had fought that day, five had won their bouts and I was one of them.
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