Badminton in Trivandrum

I use the title "Badminton in Trivandrum" because this was the search phrase I used to do a google search a couple of months back. I was going on my vacation to Trivandrum and I wanted to find some good partners to play with and a good court. I got a lot of hits, but notquite the one I wanted. I learned a lot about the limited badminton facilities in and around Trivandrum - mostly in private clubs orhotels. I was hoping to find a place where you could play "pick-up" badminton just like the way we do here in the bay area. I have been playing here in northern California for the last 8 years, and it has mostly been the kind where I show up at the court, find a partner, andstart playing.

I ended up befriending some of the regulars who play at the Sankhumugham indoor badminton courts, and played with them for a fewdays. I was amazed at the quality of badminton that I saw and experienced there. Most of them had excellent reflexes in spite oftheir age. I also saw a few dedicated youngsters - both boys and girls- who were playing excellent badminton for their age.

I was just wondering: why don't we have better badminton facilities in Kerala? There are a lot of people interested in badminton (probablynext only to cricket and soccer). It is kind of expensive, but the newplastic shuttles have made it a lot more cheaper for beginners. Obviously, we need to deveop a lot more courts - both indoor and outdoor courts, where children (and adults) can play regularly. The outdoor courts are best located in a closed space protected from thebreeze. If that is not available, badminton is best enjoyed in an open space during the mornings when there is no breeze.

I was disappointed with the quality of feather shuttles available inTrivandrum. Apart from the Yonex shuttles, the rest of them -manufactured in India - seemed to be quite bad. I am not sure why theshuttles from China and Thailand have not yet made it into the Indian markets - maybe they have, my experience is limited to the ones I saw in the stores in Trivandrum.