{"id":770,"date":"2022-02-13T16:52:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T11:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/?p=770"},"modified":"2022-02-13T16:52:07","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T11:22:07","slug":"sasha-learnt-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/2022\/02\/13\/sasha-learnt-basketball\/","title":{"rendered":"Sasha Learnt Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sasha was sitting underneath the basket on the court next to her home. She had not been able to make a basket the whole evening.<\/p>\n

She was sad and disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy can I not do it? Not even once? How can everyone else do it?\u201d she kept beating herself up, although it was the first time she had stepped foot on the court after watching all neighbourhood teenagers play.<\/p>\n

She packed her stuff and went home.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Illustration by: Danish Mir<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her father had returned from work.<\/p>\n

From their wide window in the living room facing the court, he had been watching Sasha try and miss and eventually give up.<\/p>\n

As Sasha settled on the couch, her father sat next to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is troubling you?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, father. I watch these people play so well, and I, too, want to play. But when I went out to try, I could not make a single basket.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about I join you on the court tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sasha looked at her father.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know he could play basketball. She had never seen him play or heard him mention himself playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you play?\u201d she asked, more surprised because she had only seen her father work at his furniture store.<\/p>\n

Her father smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The two of them walked to the court, with Sasha cradling the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlright, so the truth is I have never played,\u201d said her father, making her shoulders droop.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d he said, \u201cI can definitely teach you how to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on his knees.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Illustration by: Danish Mir<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cListen, my daughter. We have to learn most of the things we want to know. If you want to learn how to play basketball, you will have to start practicing. And you must practice until you learn. If you give up, you are never going to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sasha found it pretty simple, but she wasn\u2019t quite sure it could work.<\/p>\n

Yet, she began practicing.<\/p>\n

Hours passed. She missed and missed. But then she scored, only once, and her father, standing behind her, cheered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not over yet. You will have to come back every day and practice, until you will know you have learnt it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sasha followed her father\u2019s advice, and practiced daily.<\/p>\n

She practiced alone for months.<\/p>\n

One evening, her father came to see her progress.<\/p>\n

Watching her play, he understood no one in their town could play basketball better than Sasha.<\/p>\n

He told Sasha that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sasha was sitting underneath the basket on the court next to her home. She had not been able to make a basket the whole evening. She was sad and disappointed. \u201cWhy can I not do it? Not even once? How can everyone else do it?\u201d she kept beating herself up, although it was the first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[271,274,13,12,11,8,273,272],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-basketball","tag-dongiveup","tag-fairytales","tag-inspiring-tales","tag-kashmir","tag-kids-stories","tag-learning","tag-sasha","enable-dropcap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetoad.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}