Category — KBal

With me being an avid viewer of Hollywood films, and my dad being a fan of Bollywood films, we rarely watch movies together. “I don’t want to go to the theatre and sleep when I could do that at home,” he often says in his somewhat raspy voice. Although, when Slumdog Millionaire came out, he asked me to go to the movies with him. I agreed, because finally, there would be a movie that both my dad and I could enjoy. It was a movie that integrated aspects of Bollywood and Hollywood, and was also receiving critical acclaim. When we arrived at the theatre, we got the last two tickets available for the seven o’clock show time, thus raising our anticipation. “If so many people want to watch it, then it must be good” I kept trying to reassure myself. However, when the movie was in progress I couldn’t stand it. It was another boring cliché love story that kept dragging on and on. While I was fidgeting endlessly, I glanced at my dad, who was taking a nice little nap, and was happy that he didn’t like it either. “How was your nap?” I asked him once we got out. “It was better then watching that movie,” he said through laughter. Apparently he agreed that it was too sappy, and he also felt that it was a poor representation of Indian culture. Although, at the end of the day we continued to have differing tastes for movies, we both felt that Slumdog Millionaire was a dreadful movie.

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“That was definitely intentional,” I thought to myself as I lay there recovering from the agonizing pain I felt in my now black and blue eye.  The Colden Basketball Tournament carried a reputation for its physicality, however this game was turning into a brawl.  On the very next possession as I dribbled the ball down the court, I heard my friend holler in pain.  When I gazed back I saw my friend cupping his ear, blood oozing between his fingers.  The same person from the other team who took a cheap shot at me, stood next to him, with a sinister grin on his face, and my friend’s blood on his lip.  The cannibalistic monster had apparently taken a bite from his ear.   Having had enough, I plowed him to the ground and planted a right-handed jab, contorting his face.  As he got up, he howled at me in Chinese, a language completely alien to me, and vanished.  Both teams had been disqualified, but I was happy that I stuck up for my friend.  The moment we stepped outside of the gym, my teammates and I were enveloped by a group of Asian teenagers, some of whom I recognized instantly from my junior high school.  Again, Mike Tyson Jr. (as we appropriately nicknamed him) barked at me in Chinese and pulled out a knife. To my relief, one of the kids from my school told Mike Tyson Jr. something in Chinese, and they quickly disappeared.  Apparently they were scared that I had recognized them, and that I could easily identify them and get them in trouble.  Many insecure, Asian, immigrant teens (especially in Flushing) form gang like groups, trying to pick fights and gain a reputation for being hardnosed, but thankfully this group stopped before they did anything regrettable.