Written by: S.M. Ali Ul Haque (A1-C3)
It was a beautiful day on the 17th of October, as The PAF Chapter Gaming Society eyed its first competition of the semester. Well, that was the plan anyway.
We all got there around 4 pm only to notice an empty parking lot. Brushing that aside, we made our way to the reception where the receptionist asked us what we had come for. Oh, but of course! We're here to trim the garden! Not like there's an Olympiad here or something.. oh wait, we're here for a Competition. After a lengthy and an unnecessary conversation about our intent and why we didn't have ID cards, we were let in. First thing you notice at the venue of a competition is the buzz of activity and an indistinct noise of people chattering away, right? But this time, it was so quiet that I swear I heard a cat meow 80 metres away.
Anyway, we got on with that and met our 'Guide' who was complacent beyond life. Very casually, he swept aside our queries and baffled looks with a "chill out" here and a "just relax, bro" there. He then explained to us where we had to be, so we parted ways with each other and headed to our respective rooms.
I arrived in the Fifa Room only to find the organizers playing 'Winner to Stay'. I mean.. this is supposed to be a competition organised by a nationally recognized university, but okay, no problem here. Our Guide told us to "chill out". When they finally saw us, I could see they were wearing expressions of bewilderment on their faces. Should it not have been the other way round? I swear the Head had spaced out for a good 3 seconds, following which they regained composure and initiated the Competition among the 4 of us. Albeit we were part of the same team, we couldn't face each other in the first round, as per the rules.
I started the match only to find my controller is faulty. I quickly paused the match and complained. The Organizer said that he would arrange one in a minute. Little did I know that his one minute is equivalent to thirty minutes! Because it was just a matter of half an hour when my Guardian Angel finally decided to fulfill my wish and presented me with a functional controller. Following this intriguing episode, we finally began playing the match. My first match against one of my friends, Shehzad, resulted in a draw. Then all of a sudden, this guy comes in and goes like, "Sorry, I'm late". Must've been fate or something. He was the guy I was supposed to play next, so the Organizers shifted my match back an hour and put my colleagues, Noman and Arham Soleja against each other, in which Noman easily defeated Arham by a margin of 4 goals to nill. He went on to boast about it as if he had won the world cup. Fairplay, though.
Later, I played my opponent Nabil. I was able to defeat him without much difficulty by a margin of 3 goals to 2. Right After my match, I began to feel thirsty so I asked one of the Organizers to get me some water. He looked at me with discontent and said, "Wait, mein scene karta houn." After this, he whipped out an old Pepsi bottle, drank it, got up, vanished for 15 minutes and finally came back with water that tasted like Pepsi and a bit of Mountain Dew.
Afterwards, near the end of the day, Shehzad got to play too. He won his match as well by a scoreline that even he himself doesn't remember. Must've been a boring encounter because according to the Fifa commandments, you must boast about every victory. Finally, by the end of the day, we had all qualified for the next round, except for Arham, for obvious reasons.
Now I honestly thought that our event was badly managed, but then I met up with the Counterstrike team. They told me tales of true hardship and such that I couldn't even begin to imagine. They played without proper equipment. No headphones and their Organizers had a stunning lack of knowledge about the game. They did not even know how to switch sessions! Just fantastic. And to top it off, when the Team asked for the required gears, the Organizers promptly said that they'll have to bring their own. But somehow, they emerged victorious too.
After a day of being sent in circles, all of us were ready to head home, but it wasn't over yet. They stopped us on the way and began promoting their social events, especially the Carnival, which was to commence in an hour. They told us that we simply had to attend it. They said, "It'll be the best carnival ever!!" But having seen enough of their worldclass management and arrangements, we all looked at each other, gave them a positive response like all good delegations should, then left immediately.
Most of us didn't attend the second day of the Olympiad. Firstly, because of the city conditions and secondly, because you need some shaman-level patience to go through THAT again!
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