Walkers? Check. Hawkers? Check. Women claiming to be palmists? Check. Joggers? Check. Romancing couples? Check. Children building sand castles? Check. Yes, it is a typical Saturday evening scene at Chennai’s Elliots Beach. But amidst all this, there is a group of fairly noisy people, throwing around a disk. The scene is a game of Ultimate Frisbee, a 7-a-side, non-contact sport imported straight from the campuses of American universities, and best described as a heady cocktail of soccer, basketball and football.

It was in 2007 that Manu Karan went on a quest to find a soft surface in the bustling city of Chennai. “The game is originally played on grass, but a grass surface that would accommodate 14 players was unavailable in Chennai. So we turned to the beach,” says Manu, who picked up the game in his years in the US as a graduate student.

“For my friends and I back in the US, this sport was our ultimate weekend activity, and when we came back to Chennai to work, we didn’t want to stop playing it,” says Manu. And along with his Frisbee buddies Shankar and Narayanan, he continued their weekend sessions here in the beach. “We didn’t plan on institutionalizing our recreation, but it just happened,” he says. In just a year, Chennai Ultimate Frisbee Club gained a total of registered 95 members whose ages ranged from 18 to 48.

The weekend schedule extended into the week, as more and more people fell in love with the game. “It was Chennai whispers, in its true spirit!” exclaims Manu, when asked about how the game won so many hearts in such a short span of time. “None of us did any conscious promotion, it so happened that somebody came, played, had fun, went back and told their friends, and before we knew it, we were a club!” Two years on, the game is somewhat of a fad in the city, with its 160 plus members closely monitoring its Twitter page¹ for practice schedules and tournament announcements.

Ultimate Frisbee is a fast-paced, exciting sport, and there isn’t ever a dull moment in it. “That it’s a non-contact sport throws open a lot of inter-cultural, inter-generational, inter-sex interaction; our players come from all kinds of age groups and professional backgrounds,” says Manu. Played with two teams of seven on a large rectangular field, the object of the game is to move the Frisbee up the field by passing the disc from team-mate to team-mate until completing a pass in the opponent’s end-zone. Transitions between offense and defense are quick and constant, occurring whenever the disc is dropped, intercepted, passed out of bounds, or held by the player for more than ten seconds².

The discs used in the game are of a special regulation size weighing around 175 grams, and are not found in India. “We place orders from Frisbee makers in the US or request friends and family coming here to bring them over,” says Manu. However, minor shortcomings such as these are more than made up by the enthusiasm of CUF players. According to the founder, “from once a week, the sessions have now gone up to four times a week. Newbies keep flowing in, and the best part is that everybody learns quickly.”

“It’s an addictive sport. Recommended by my friends, I decided to give it a try, and have been gripped since,” says Megha Radhakrishnan. A soft skills trainer at a software firm in Chennai, and a self-proclaimed Ultimate-phile, she says it has also helped raise her fitness and stamina levels.

An interesting feature about Ultimate Frisbee is the spirit in which it is played in. “There are no referees and umpires in the sport. When a person drops or intercepts a disc, he calls the foul himself,” explains Manu. “Ultimate is a very nice sport, any kind of unnecessary touching and contact is frowned upon.”

Ultimate Frisbee in India is quietly but surely growing. While Chennai now has multiple teams, the ultimate bug has spread to cities like Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. “One of the challenges in ultimate frisbee lies in finding soft surfaces, as much of the sport is about jumping, diving and generally performing Jonty-Rhodes-esque³ stunts. And this is a huge problem in India’s urban concrete jungles,” says Manu, “We dream of a day when we can have exclusive ultimate Frisbee stadiums with lush green grass surfaces.”

After friendly tours in Ahmedabad and Bangalore in early 2008, the Chennai Ultimate Frisbee Club decided to host its own tournament. In November last year, it hosted the Chennai International Beach Ultimate Tournament that saw teams from Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and even Colombo participating. Ever since, they’ve been involved in small-scale, and more or less amateur tournaments both at home and in Mysore and Kodaikanal. “We have a huge tournament planned come October in Chennai, and the initial responses from sponsors have been quite positive,” Manu assures me. Also on the cards are possible hook-ups with the Asian Ultimate Frisbee League.

One thing that stands out among UF players is the camaraderie and passion that they exhibit. I ask Manu if CUF has thought of taking the sport to children, especially the under-privileged section, who might be able to draw a lot from the sport’s many social and physical benefits. “Often, after an early Saturday morning session, we head over to the Olcott Memorial School in the neighbourhood, and train them in ultimate,” he says. “It’s incredible, but even after a couple of weeks of training, one can see a marked difference in their social skills: they learn to be honest, own up to their mistakes, and develop healthy relations on and off the field.”

The sun is about to set in Elliot’s as Manu confides to me that more focused and structured social activities are being planned. Until then, this bunch can surely be counted on to keep the disc flying high.

Photo Courtesy: Rhapsoder

Footnotes:

1. http://twitter.com/chennaiultimate
2. http://chennaiultimatefrisbee.com/?page_id=5
3. Jonty Rhodes: an ex-south African cricketer who is considered one of the best fielders of all time; he is known for his acrobatic fielding.