High Flier

I picked up Volleyball as my favorite sport. The need for camouflaging my ineptness at the national religion, read Cricket, was pressing. And the diameter of the ball in this sport ensured that my hand-eye co-ordination will enable the proverbial 'contact'.

As the years passed and the Net became a phenomena, almost simultaneously the Volleyball net became my proving benchmark. Yeah, a pathetic pun, but bear it.
Stopping the striker on the opposite side dead in his tracks gave super-duper kick. The high flying ball, setup by the team-mate, eyed by the striker, to be hit at bullet-speed across the net; its a clockwork precision. To intercept that, Godlike.

There the realization dawned that I like being in air. Just that. Jumping. Feeling weightless. Escaping gravity for that brief millisecond. Its a freedom and elation I had not known before.

Later, I got introduced to the arena of Unreal Tournament. This game never gained any substantial fan-base when compared to Quake3. Yet, the deathmatch had one particular map which will go on to occupy my time-slots of endless nights. Its the "Morpheus" arena. Coincidentally, the id of my fellow blogger. But my preference to this arena has no bearings or indications for any alleged 'preference' to Comrade Morpheus.

View Morpheus

The arena has 3 buildings which rise high above the earth. The physics (and some bit of creativity) set the rule that the roof-tops are low gravity zones. Add a pair of anti-grav boots to this gameplay. And you get a thrill ride of jumps and flying across buildings. Hours of playing this arena left me feeling flying across the 3D world around me.

The effect allowed to fulfill my pleasure trip. Played Morpheus for about an hour at high difficulty settings just before going to sleep. The dreams which followed would have me flying and gliding in air. I have actually felt that the world is fleeting under my feet. I could glide as if on hovercraft-boots as well as cruise at high speeds la Superman style. While this sounds crazy, because the dream was so vivid and probably I wanted desperately to get the feel, it seemed all real. Makes me wonder the power of perception can blur the boundaries of reality and imagination.

Some other media where I got to live my imagination:
1. Superman
2. Matrix (Neo doing the superman thingy)
3. Watching astronauts on their jetpacks.
4. The oriental martial arts movies (Crouching Tiger Hidden Tiger)