Shubhankar Sharma,
a 21-year-old golfer from
Chandigarh, made his debut in a major championship
last month when he appeared in the Masters Tournament
in Augusta, Georgia. Though he missed the cut
by two shots, scoring 77 and 74 in the opening rounds,
merely playing in the Masters was a dream come true
for Sharma. His 16-year-old sister, Vandini, accompanied
him to Augusta and wrote a first-person account
of the experience for The Associated Press.
Vandini recalled the excitement of receiving
a package from the Masters, containing the formal
invitation to Shubhankar.
“A memory was pulling itself loose in my mind,
of being 6 years old and stepping into the shower to
discover the mirror fogged up with water vapor,” she
writes. “The previous, 12-year-old occupant, my Bhai,
had squiggled in cursive letters, ‘The Masters,’ above
a trophy titled ‘Shubhankar.’”
On visiting Augusta National’s majestic grounds,
she writes, “A general whiff of elegance lingers everywhere
you go. I’ve sat on oak benches ten times my
age. I have pretended to calmly hover as Tiger Woods
walked by ten feet away.”
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? Please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips, and more.]