Guns, Gunpowder, Pistols, Rifles, Bullets… What comes to your mind after hearing these words? Answers to this simple question can be as varied as the options of toppings on a pizza, but they’ll be mainly spread across three categories. One will be of the out right realistic, pragmatic people. The juggle in their mind will take a detour towards either terrorism or military crack downs. These words, for them, are synonymous to oppression or a revolution, to a war or to the menace caused by rowdy hooligans in otherwise peaceful cities. While some would link these words to the Kashmir fight and for others these words will invoke a sense of hatred. The second category would be of the fun loving, chirping pleasure seekers. They like to subdue their rational, left brain while firing up its right, imaginative part. The drift of their 
minds will take them to the movies where actors wield their guns in as glamorous way as possible. The kids get impressed and parents placate them by buying some fake replicas which can send out similar sound waves as were in the movie. And then there’s another small group of people who would think about sports. Yeah right! Shooting sports.
Indian policies and laws are not that favorable towards providing shooting ammo to the bourgeois. That’s the reason why many of us are bereaved from this extremely exiting sport. However, I got an opportunity take a shot on this, literally, and I followed the age old tenet that opportunities should be seized as they come.
On a fine Saturday in August we, The Five Musketeers (the more the merrier), decided to fully utilize our weekend. The sky was haphazardly patched with clouds. The sun, beaming with all of its force, was able to find a vent between the patches sometimes. We had a decent breakfast and were set for almost an hour long drive from Dublin (Suburb of Columbus) to Delaware. The journey, as always, was full of fun, with a lot gibber and jokes. After draining all our brains through the weekdays and the gibber seemed such relief. The landscape around the roads was pretty much like that in India. The fields of crops were spread across; felt as if we had taken a road towards some village of Punjab. The only difference was that the crop here was corn and would be wheat or sugarcane back at home.
Our friend from Accenture (US), Harmandeep Sran, was our guide. Basically he follows shooting sports and is himself a pretty good shooter (not a sniper though, just kidding). He had brought with him the arsenal which included 4 guns i.e. a Mosin–Nagant, bolt action Russian riffle used in Second World War, a Savage 17 hmr riffle with AccuTrigger, a Reminton shotgun and the Taurus 38 special revolver. As we were nearing the Delaware shooting range, 
we took a halt at a local ammunition purchase shop where we got ourselves the license for shooting, the clays (for clay shooting) and a hell lot of bullets. It was quite amazing to see how easy it was to purchase the ammo and to get the license for shooting in US.
As we reached the shooting range, we decided to go for the 100 m rifle shooting first followed by the revolver shots and then, the most glamorous clay shooting. We called for a cease fire and placed our target. Our guide laid down big black boxes and we took out the rifles. The feeling of holding the rifle first time in my hands was awesome. First we organized the Savage rifle and loaded the magazine with bullets. And then came the time, when I fired my first shot. Initially I was a little nervous but after the first shot I felt a sense of achievement, yeah it’s not an achievement as such but who can explain the ramblings of a human brain completely. Then we all took our shots of five bullets, technically in a round robin fashion(haha).
The advanced rifles pose lesser recoil, so our Savage rifle was a cream pie but Mosin–Nagant was a dry nut, hard to crack but so delicious inside. The first shot gave a jar to my shoulder, as if telling me – son, this isn’t a cream pie, brace up to handle me! We did got up to it pretty well though.
After having tried our hands at the rifles, the next stop was the revolver. The revolvers are good for short distance only, so our targets were closer, but on the same time the recoil of a revolver is pretty strong; it makes your hand move up. To tell you the truth, out of the five initial shots I managed to hit the target just once and that too on the third circle from the center.
As is the case with all shows, the most famous & glamorous actors/actresses come to stage in the end, similar was the case here. Our next gun was loaded with bling, the Remington Shotgun. Many of us would have seen our actors flashing their sawed off shotguns, also know as lupara. The shotgun is used for clay shoot where the target is moving. The targets are the discs made of clay which are thrown in the air by a clay shooting device or manually. The five of us consumed around 150 clays and similar number of bullets. We began with not being able to shoot even one of the three clays thrown in the air but ended up pretty strong. On the final shots of mine, I did a hattrick.
The range closed down at fifteen to five and we all headed back to our place. And while I was lying on my bed I decreed that this, till date, has been the most enjoyable thing that I’ve done in my life.
Every year has its own ups and downs, if it doesn't then either you are complacent or dead. Life can never stick to any one mode, it keeps switching on & off. The ON period should be en-cashed right away while the OFF period provides the path for restructuring your thoughts. I tried my level best to do both, but will definitely better myself in 2k10.
