Consolation Prize

The excitement was high and there was chaos everywhere I looked around. It was the Annual Sports Meet in my college. And guess what? I was the organizer of all the events and competitions. The "organizer" post does not come for free. It needs to take care the needs of all my friends. Everything was going on fine until one of my friends, Pakya, came to me with a peculiar problem.

"Hey man! I don't have any opponents for the contest!" Pakya said.

"Yeah? That's not good. What kind of sport?"

"100 meter running race. And I can't believe I am left all alone!"

"Oh, I see. Don't worry. I'll find few opponents for you. Gimme some time. Okay?" I said with confidence.

"Alright! Fine, I'll wait" he replied and left.

I caught hold of couple of people assigned them the job of finding athletes for this event. They searched for people in different departments and finally half an hour later, they came back with three opponents. I was glad and Pakya was beaming with confidence now. He was fully pumped up and started warming up for the race right away. So, this competition was finally scheduled, I wished him good luck and I got busy with other things.

Few hours later, the race was over and I was eager to know what the outcome was. Being sure that Pakya would have won the race easily, I looked for him to congratulate him. The result was hilarious. I couldn't control my laughter as it turned out to be a practical joke. This guy, this very guy, Pakya, for whom we found opponents to compete with, had lost the race. He finished last! It was unimaginable. And we were just ROFL. (I bet he looked like Sid the sloth from the movie Ice Age making the face as displayed here)

And during the prize distribution, a new prize was introduced in addition to the top three winners - the consolation prize. This was even more hilarious. This prize was awarded to him not because he stood fourth, but because he was the one who made the event happen. The poor guy felt awfully ashamed of himself. We teased him very hard on that day. To this very day, this comedy left a permanent mark in our memories: "You could have won the race running alone or you need not have competed at all. We could have declared you a winner on the spot!"

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It is my brother who shared this story with me. It happened during his engineering days. I keep reminding myself of this story very often and laugh about it.