When I was a child, owning a skateboard was always on top of my to-do list. I know, it's almost an impossible thing to have when you're living in a country like Bangladesh. But whenever I watched those school-going kids with their skateboards in English movies, I can't keep my eyes off them. The way they race, stunt, catch and move with their board, it kept fascinated me for a long period of time.
But this time, I was lucky. Well, I couldn't manage skateboard at my early age, but did get one in my university life. Let's hear the story.
So, when I was doing my post-graduate degree, the cherishing for a skateboard almost faded away. We moved our resident to a new posh place where some posh kid comes free. So, one day, with a tiring body, I was coming home from my university, and suddenly I saw a school kid practising a damn skateboard near my residence! It was hard to believe my own eyes as I never saw this precious in real life.
But as I didn't know the kid back then, so never asked how he could manage one, I thought maybe it was a gift from abroad. But that day made me curious, what if I can find a store of skateboard in Bangladesh too?
I shared my thought with one of my friends and to my surprise, he took me to our one and only skateboard store (which is in Banani) on my birthday. Before that, I had no idea on this store at all. Can you imagine the glowing face of a kid while roaming in his favourite toy store? Well, my face was like that. I can't express properly how happy was I seeing all those splendid skateboards in one place. I also can't express that precious moment when I touched on of those boards for the first time.
Then after a while, we came to know how pricy this thing is. Like the boards, which are made of Canadian maple wood, are the best to use, as they don't break easily. And those who have 8 layers on them, are the most pricy ones. Like back then (4 years ago), the professional boards are like bdt 8k. As we were students with a low-income source from only tuition, we can't keep our eyes on those shiny classy ones. So we came down a little and chose one from the middle range. And with all the additional setup, we paid around 4k and split half (as both of us were going to learn to ride this thing).
We had a brief introduction from the seller on how to use it like rainwater wasn't supposed to come close to the board, then where to place the foot on it, how to bend and keep the balance all the things like that.
𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓼 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓲𝓶𝓪𝓰𝓮𝓼 𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓮, 𝓾𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓵 𝓲𝓽'𝓼 𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓭.
So on the following day, we started to learn how to ride it. And the journey wasn't that easy. It felt like cycling is way easier than keeping balance on a skateboard. Maybe it was to me, coz some of my other friends learned it within one day. But that thing took almost one week to fully gain control over it.
And gradually, my fantasy with skateboard was fading away when lots of disparity had come along. Like without winter, it's damn hard to go out with skateboard, as it takes out a lot of your strength. Then you can't speed up on the rough surface. and if any little piece of brick, concrete or wood comes in contact with the wheel, the running board will instantly break itself and you'll crush on the road within a sec (and that happened to me for a quite long time, as you'll never find a perfectly clean road). And you can imagine what can happen on Dhaka's uneven road.
So I wasn't able to move with my board wherever I like. And without the cold season, I couldn't bring it out too.
But without these issues, I felt like skateboarding is more than just a sport. Because at the core, it's all about freedom and creativity. As there aren't any bound rules, one can put his creativity and bring out personal style. And that brings out endless possibilities for expressing one's self. But these tricks will come with a huge level of practice and dedication, coz you'll likely fall many times before mastering those unique tricks.
So if you're looking for experiencing something challenging, you can give skateboarding a try. and as the days are going by, this thing is becoming available (like you can find it in daraz too!). I'll give the link of that famous skateboard store here, they've a pretty cool website, check this out.
In conclusion, I should say, skateboarding is a thrilling activity where you'll get the taste of freedom. But for a country like ours, it'll cost a little fortune too. Happy riding!
