It was 1 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon this past February, and the campus was quiet. As the clock slowly turned to 1:15, the first few senior Indian guys started piling into the Quad, late as usual, to Bombay in the Bay practice. By 1:30, almost everyone was there and practice was about to start, but the group of guys realized they were still missing two key dancers: Neel Jain and Partha Shah.
Walking back out to the parking lot, the group tried to see if the two missing members would ever show up to practice. As they walked to the front of the parking lot, they noticed a peculiar sight: Neel’s and Partha’s cars parked in the empty lot, right next to each other. As they walked closer, they spotted the two boys engaged in an intense battle of the card game Yu-Gi-Oh in the back seat of Neel’s car.
Yu-Gi-Oh is a trading card game where players draw from their respective deck of cards. The objective of the game is to play cards from the deck in order to reduce the opponent's set amount of “life points.” Each card has a different action or effect on the game with the game ending when a player has no more life points or cards to draw from the deck.
After being caught playing this childhood game, the two thought they would be made fun of and ridiculed. The reaction, however, was the complete opposite of what they expected.
Partha said that getting caught resulted in the expansion of the Yu-Gi-Oh group. Seniors Luke Salin, Aakash Thumaty and Abhay Anabathula all eventually bought some card packs to join in on the fun.
This addiction to Yu-Gi-Oh began in the middle of junior year when a few members of the Yu-Gi-Oh group became nostalgic and decided to buy a pack of cards.
“One day during junior year, Luke Neel Jain and I just went out to buy a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and we just thought playing the game would be fun,” Partha said. “After that, we just started playing together before or after BnB practices.”
Having beat every member in the group at least once, Neel holds the crown for being the best player. In fact, Neel is so unanimously acknowledged as the best player that others admit that beating Neel has become a proud, boast-worthy accomplishment.
“The best moment for me was when was when I finally beat [Neel] — we were both down to 300 life points and I had one card that I played that attacked his life points and he wasn't expecting it,” Partha said. “I finally won, but only after losing around six games straight against him.”
According to Luke, the matches the group plays can get really heated. He recalls that whether they play online off video chat or in person, everyone is pretty intense and people’s moods change drastically while playing.
Despite the initial embarrassment of being found playing cards in the back of their car, the group has come to to cherish their frequent backseat duels.
“The matches are pretty intense, [so] the banter gets pretty heated,” Luke said. “It may not sound like a lot of fun, but it actually is something we enjoy doing.”
