Already people walking inside were casting condescending glances at her. Mostly men with a salt-and-pepper beard and well-preserved women in their late forties or early fifties. To Anu’s chagrin, they were all in short skirts looking nice and toned. She was the grandma there in track pants! Then she heard a voice behind her.

‘Anu! Surprise! Who are you playing with?’ Anu wanted the earth to break open and swallow her. It was Meena.

‘Mmm … not with anyone in particular. Thought I could come here and find a partner.’ To Anu’s relief, Meena looked quite comical in her skirt.

‘Okay. Let her inside. She can play with us today.’ Meena ordered the guard pompously. Anu knew the sane option at that point would have been to just run home, but she followed Meena meekly.

After a quick round of hellos and hugs with her friends, Meena turned to Anu. ‘You warm up for a bit. By then we will play two games.’

‘Sure,’ Anu mumbled. Somehow, leave alone warming up even moving herself seemed like a herculean task. She felt unbelievably self-conscious. Taking a chair, Anu glanced around. It was beautiful just like everything else in that place. Three courts next to one another, lined by palm trees and flowerbeds. The people in the other two courts looked very professional. Mostly men but some women battling it out with men. It was almost ten in the morning and that meant the players were mostly retirees or homemakers.

Anu focussed on Meena and her friends. Much to her chagrin, they turned out to be quite good! No Serena Williams but at least her cousins hundred times removed. She still had an opportunity to turn tail and run but Anu decided to stick around. When she played in high school, she was not bad at all. How hard can it be to whack the tiny ball around with a huge racquet?

Meena walked up to Anu and told her to take her place. Anu was sure it was only to assess her skill-level and not out of any benevolence. But that was still all right. She at least got to play. Taking a deep calming breath, Anu walked into the ground on wobbly legs. Why hadn’t she run?

The woman who was her partner flashed the most unfriendly smile while doing some kind of twisty, jumpy warm up. Then even before Anu had her racquet in place, the woman served. As Anu watched in horror, the ball got returned by the opponent and raced towards her at a thousand kilometres per hour. Nobody hit that hard in high school! At first, Anu tried to duck the ball and then out of sheer self-defence, held her racquet to it. By some miracle, the ball crossed the court and landed in the opponent’s court.