Bull’s-eye with slings and flings

by Gaston de Rosayro

Few people realise that a good throwing arm is as invaluable an asset as any of the human faculties. Indeed, it must have gone a long way to ensure the survival of the human race. How else would Neanderthal man have contrived to have hunted or protected himself from the awesome ferocity of monsters now extinct? By hurling rocks at them, that is how!

Throwing, next to running, punching and the act of procreation is possibly the most instinctive impulse with which we have been endowed. And don’t I know it! In a long and chequered career of tossing everything from crumpled paper balls, to stones, rotten tomatoes, iguana eggs and firecrackers - yes, firecrackers - I consider myself a sort of authority on the subject.

My fascination for chucking goes back a long way to when I was knee-high to my grandfather and living in his suburban country estate. The sprawling plantation was a paradise for me to indulge in this primeval pastime to my heart’s content. For one, the estate held an abundance of ammunition in the form of stones and rocks and an array of diverse targets that would have warmed the cockles of the most discriminating marksman’s heart.

I recall during those early years how my tender shoulder used to whinny with pain as did the ends of my tiny fingers as I indiscriminately flung barrages of conveniently available missiles at the motley selection of targets I fancied.

Come to think of it, I must have been the greatest stone thrower in the world at six or thereabouts. With nearly two years of constant practice under my belt, I realised that my technique had improved by tremendous slings and flings. I unleashed rocks and stones with unerring accuracy at literally any and everything that provided a tempting target.

By the time I was eight I could hit a moving target with such amazing accuracy that I became a sort of celebrity among the family circle. Besides, I had obviously perfected the technique because my shoulder and fingers did not hurt any more even after marathon pitching sessions.

One day at sundown, my grandparents, sitting in the cool of their expansive verandah, pointed out to a luscious bunch of mangoes dangling temptingly from a courtyard tree. Although the target was at a seemingly impossible height, I instinctively picked a smooth, round rock, pivoted slightly on my heel and let fly.

My grandparents watched in disbelief as the projectile, seemingly guided by some beneficent deity, neatly clipped the main stem holding the bunch of fruit. As the mangoes came hurtling down in a glorious, green-gold explosion, I felt as euphoric as Joshua at Jericho when the walls came tumbling down. Following this success I blew my own trumpet far louder and wider than Joshua ever did.

During the vacations, when my brothers Denis, Lance and countless cousins such as Arlen, Ralph and Bambi came to visit, I would organise ‘war games.’We divided ourselves into teams and collected everything from several varieties of inedible wild fruit to hard, green rubber pods as ammunition to stock our armories with before the battles began. And what pitched battles they were! We unleashed broadside after broadside of improvised shot and shell at one another amid a cacophony of war-whoops and painful yelps.

The war games went on with merry abandon until that fateful day when Arlen, a desperate cousin, caught in a cross-fire between Denis and Russel and running dangerously low on ammunition, broke cover and charged his opponents in a kamikaze onslaught. In the intensity of his reckless offensive he inadvertently picked up a rock and hurled it at an adversary. In the heat of the battle no one noticed cousin Russell writhing on the ground contorting hideously and clutching at his bloodied head.

The wound, fortunately, was not as serious as it seemed, although Russell spent the rest of the vacation resembling a mummified King Tut from his ears up.

I still manage to keep in practice by tossing crumpled paper balls at my colleagues who will all testify I seldom miss. On the occasions that I do, it is purely intentional. It is sometimes best to miss. Flinging a paper clip, for instance, and hitting your target spot-on is not as effective as hitting an object close to him. The very sound of a clip twanging against a convenient target close to his ear, such as a typewriter or computer screen, unnerves the victim far more than if it had actually struck him physically.

I hardly use my handkerchief to dry my hands after washing them. Instead I come out of the washroom and look around for large pieces of plain absorbent paper to dry them with. Dry paper is not exactly aerodynamic but wet, crumpled paper provides one with a reasonably good chance of scoring a bull’s-eye.

I once lobbed a soggy, crumpled paper ball right into the gaping jaws of a colleague as he slumbered blissfully, mouth agape, at his desk. A co-worker in another office once threw a sweet at a girl he fancied who was way across the other end of the room. We all watched in astonishment as the lolly ballooned over a number of working heads to plonk into the glass of her soft drink. For all the chucking enthusiasts in the office those pitching feats were positively exhilarating. To make an expert throw with flawless accuracy is never easy. One has to calculate precisely trajectory and motion while holding the missile in one’s fingers before attempting the fling. Hitting the target even for the umpteenth time, in my case, always gives me a feeling of power and confidence enough to make even a loathsome day endurable.

In my late teens, I once threw an ice cube from nearly 50 paces at a buxom, sun-tanning, bikini-clad woman on a Colombo beach. As my friends watched in veneration and unequivocal stupefaction, the glistening cube made an arcing trajectory and finally, bingo! It embedded itself in the cleavage of her blacmanging bottom. For my friends, it was one of life’s most delectable moments. For me, it was the hallucinatory peak in my entire throwing career.

We escaped prosecution and possibly physical harm only because the woman and her companions simply couldn’t believe that anyone could have thrown an ice cube that far. Besides, a law student friend who had been an accessory to the misdemeanor, maintained that our victim couldn’t have done anything about it anyway because the vital evidence had melted away right before her disbelieving eyes.

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