Fully Infected

The only worthy adversaries are Mumbai-based Mercenary Assassins. And when the two titans clash at Bandra8217;s Cafe Skirmish8212;owned by Acid member Rahul Rohira8212;everyone knows some cyber blood will be spilt.

About four years old in India, professional cyber gaming commands a loyal following. Compared to the international market though, we8217;re newbies. Only since 2001 has the World Cyber Games had Indian participants. But from 20,000 entrants in 2003, the number has leaped threefold this year, according to 28-year-old Vishal Gondal, founder and director, Indiagames, a game development firm.

While solo games like Warcraft, FIFA, Need For Speed are popular, most pros swear by Counter-Strike. Played in teams of five, it pits armies of terrorists and counter terrorists against each other in a brutal fight to the end.

Fists are clenched, expletives hurled and, often, the loser8217;s fury is unleashed on anything that gets in the way. 8216;8216;Once, I was so ped off at losing a game, I almost broke a table,8217;8217; laughs Parpia.

Akshit 8216;Rogue8217; Sogani, 21, captain of the Mercenary Assassins, thrives on the gore. Leading the pack is not easy8212;he needs to be alert enough to not get killed, and at the same time give instructions to the rest of the team.

Though clans are close-knit groups, defection is not frowned upon in the skewed cyber world. Until last year, Sogani was an Acid clansman, who left to command his own flock.

Players are known by their nicknames and the clans that support them. Membership is by invitation, only after a gamer has proved his worth. A clan is an even mix of talents. The cool-headed captain gives the orders, the snipers take the precision shots, and the campers fix themselves at a vantage point and lie in wait for the enemy.

Clansmen adopt nicknames as part of the induction ritual. 8216;8216;The nick becomes your identity throughout your gaming career,8217;8217; says 20-year-old Avilay Jha from Bangalore8217;s Indian Institute of Personnel Management, whose passion for cars led him to assume the pseudonym Spitfire. His Bangalore clan goes by the name Extreme. To the layperson, they are more like a cult8212;an impression created by the matching T-shirts, fierce scowls and glazed eyes.

The city8217;s gaming watering hole is Gamers Headquarters GHQ, and in an attempt to appease fretful parents, Extreme rationalises the daily jaunts as time well spent. 8216;8216;It improves your hand-eye co-ordination,8217;8217; insists captain Kuruvilla 8216;Crucio8217; Cherian, 20, who games three hours every day at GHQ.

They say you always remember your first, and his initial encounter lasted seven long hours. 8216;8216;That8217;s when I realised how addictive it can get; now I can8217;t stop playing,8217;8217; sighs Cherian, who rations most of his pocket money for gaming. Dinners, movies and outings with non-gaming pals are reserved for surplus hours.

But the survival of clans is as turbulent as that of rock bands. 8216;8216;Ego clashes are common, and coordination next to impossible,8217;8217; says Delhi8217;s Rajat Khanna, 18, whose clan Citadel of Pain broke up recently and is trying to regroup with new members. The aspiring lawyer, currently completing his BBA from Rai University, is sharp in his disapproval of the city8217;s apathy towards gaming.

8216;8216;We need exclusive gaming cafes,8217;8217; he insists, confident that good infrastructure will put Delhi on the map. With his stern anti-piracy stance, Khanna shells out Rs 5,000 monthly on acquiring the latest versions.

Few, however, are able to pinpoint why they play so furiously. 8216;8216;I feel physically ill if I don8217;t play for a day,8217;8217; says 18-year-old Shan 8216;Yunsung8217; Narayanan, a student of SRM College, Chennai. For four hours daily, he8217;s a keyboard junkie at Chennai8217;s Bliss cafe with the rest of his clan, the Agents.

Narayanan, who caught the cyber bug three years ago, is today a fully infected gamer who8217;s often found himself in a daze at odd hours and penniless outside a gaming cafe.

But stuff like this is par for the keyboard, especially if disapproving parents vow to keep you sober. Nineteen-year-old Anand Gomes, of Pune8217;s Masters of Disharmony, is one such victim of parental supervision. 8216;8216;My mom8217;s grounded me, but friends have lent money when my pocket cash has been cut off,8217;8217; says the lanky computer science student at PVG College, who still rendezvouses on the sly with his love at Surfs Up.

Because gamers spend most of their time with each other, they also end up partying together8212;whether it8217;s catching a movie or hanging out. But the real treat comes along only once in a few months8212;a LAN party.

Players lug their own PCs and snacks to a friend8217;s place, connect to each other and play into the wee hours. Surviving on adrenaline and swigs of caffeine, LAN party animals have been known to play for two nights straight.

And in the virtual world, who needs physical presence to have a good time? On the Internet, games are played by connecting to a server. 8216;8216;It8217;s difficult to connect to foreign servers because of our slow Internet connection speeds,8217;8217; says 23-year-old Peter Fernandez, who hosts Frag-shack, the most popular domestic server.

Though the average age of gamers is 20, there are exceptions. Nicky 8216;Zap8217; Bansal, 14, is one of them. 8220;It helps with the girls at school,8217;8217; he winks.

And while gaming appears to be an all-male obsession, Channel V veejay Sarah Jane derides any such assumption. 8216;8216;I love playing these games and am quite good,8217;8217; she retorts. Despite her hectic schedule, she manages to game at least twice a week.

But as with any other niche hobby, gaming is yet to be recognised as a sport in the country and the only sponsor is Indiagames.

But Gondal is optimistic. 8220;At the current rate of growth, by 2008, with the penetration of broadband Internet and cheap hardware, we should have about two to three million gamers,8217;8217; he says. Meanwhile, gamers themselves have been proactive8212;the Indian Pro League was formed last year.

Their Carnage 2004 was the first Indian Counter-Strike tournament held in four cities. And with men like Hyderabad8217;s S Sushmit Reddy, 22, Gondal seems to be on to something. 8216;8216;I think it8217;s really cool to kill,8217;8217; Reddy confesses, his eyes gleaming with lust as he extinguishes yet another virtual life.

With inputs from Pooja Kumar in New Delhi