Category Archives: Sports

Story of a young mountaineer

Amazing Feats, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All, Sports, Travel

Piyali Basak, a 26-year-old mountaineer may have limited means but she more than makes up with her drive

Piyali Basak, the 26-year-old mountaineer from Chandernagore, a municipal town 50 kilometres from Calcutta / Source: Piyali Basak

BREAKING: Heartbreak. This Wednesday, Piyali Basak was 500 metres away from the summit of Mt Everest when she had to abort her attempt and return to base camp. She had run out of oxygen. She had run out of funds to purchase refills. She had run into a terrible jam on the final slope.

Now, rewind: The call record shows a missed call from an unknown number. When I call back, a woman’s frantic voice answers at first ring. “Sir, Piyali has made it to the top. She tried to call you several times. You didn’t respond…” The person at the other end is Ratna, mother of Piyali, the 26-year-old mountaineer from Chandernagore, a municipal town 50 kilometres from Calcutta. Piyali has successfully scaled Mount Manaslu (8,163m), the world’s eighth highest peak, in western Nepal.

The last time I met Piyali, she was running from pillar to post trying to raise money to fund her attempt. “For nearly two months, I visited corporate offices, met ministers, political leaders and heads of charitable organisations. But I couldn’t gather even half the money,” she had said.

Piyali belongs to a lower middle-class family; means are limited, responsibilities are Himalayan. But then, there is the siren call of the mountains. Basak Bari, Piyali’s ancestral home, is in Chandernagore’s Kantapukur locality. It is not very difficult for me to find the two-storey house. Piyali has given clear directions up to a certain point. “Then you have to ask for the girl who climbs mountains,” she had said.

The living-cum-dining room is spacious but stuffed with trophies, medals and mountaineering gear. There are about a dozen water colour paintings on the walls; these show snowy peaks, yaks. There are red and yellow prayer flags strung on a long string. We are exchanging pleasantries with Piyali and her mother, Ratna, when we hear someone groan in pain. “My husband,” says Ratna apologetically and rushes inside.

Piyali’s father is a cerebral stroke patient. Once he had his own little business, but it went bust when Piyali was still in primary school. The stroke came close on the heels of the shock, rendering him partially paralysed. Some years later he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. As Piyali is the eldest of three siblings, the responsibility of running the household fell on her.

Ratna tells me that her daughter’s attraction for mountaineering was born of a textbook account of the expedition of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. “She was in Class VI then,” says Ratna. It seems, those days, the family would undertake a pilgrimage a year — Kedarnath, Gomukh, Amarnath. That was around the time when Piyali joined a local rock-climbing club.

Like many mountaineers in Bengal, Piyali started with Susunia, a 450m hill in southern Bengal. To keep herself in shape, she started taking Taekwondo and swimming lessons. After graduating in mathematics, she took basic and advanced courses at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling.

Her first major expedition was to Mt Mulkila — a 6,517m peak in Himachal Pradesh — in 2010. Says the five-foot-nothing mountaineer with the physique of a twig, “I climbed efficiently and effortlessly; it seemed as if my body was built for this.” The following year, she tried to summit Mt Kamet, a peak in the Garhwal region, which stands even taller at 7,756m. “We had to cancel the trip after we ran out of food,” she says. Some other niggling issues, according to her, were poor quality gear, worn-out tents and recycled oxygen cylinders. That failure left its mark.

Soon after, a team led by Debashis Biswas and Basanta Singha Roy from Krishnangar made the first successful civilian expedition to Mt Everest from the state. An enthused Piyali joined an advanced mountaineering training course at the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) in New Delhi. Some months later, equipped with her new skills, she set off for Mt Bhagirathi 2 (6,512m). But the all-women team faced an unforeseen challenge in the infamous cloudburst of Uttarakhand. Says Piyali, “We nearly got blown away at the summit camp, just a few hundred metres from the peak. We remained stranded for four days. Our equipment, food, everything got buried in snow.” When she returned home, her relations and friends advised her to give up climbing.

Piyali was not entirely persuaded but she was now more focused on preparing for competitive exams for government jobs. In 2014, she passed the School Service Commission exam and joined as a teacher in Kanailal Vidyamandir near her home. But the mountaineering bug returned to bite her. She met Biswas and then Chhanda Gayen, the first civilian woman from Bengal to climb Mt Everest, during a felicitation programme. “Chhanda shared with the audience her experience of climbing Mt Everest and Lhotse. I got to know that she practises martial arts and swimming,” says Piyali. Soon after, Chhanda went for an expedition to Mt Kanchenjungha and lost her life in an avalanche.

Piyali returned to the IMF and took an advanced leadership training and, thereafter, undertook an expedition to an unnamed peak (over 6,500m) near the Bara Shigri glacier in Himachal, with an injured leg. She says, “That is when I realised that climbing works like a drug for me. I forget all pain, every hardship.” The newfound confidence pushed her to join another expedition, to Mt Tinchenkang (6,010m) this time. “I made it to the summit despite a terrible stomach cramp,” she says. When she consulted a doctor upon returning home, it turned out to be a huge uterine tumour. Ratna says, “While she was being wheeled to the operation theatre, she asked if she would still be able to climb Mt Everest.” Adds her sister, Tamali, “After the surgery the doctor called and showed me the huge tumour she had been harbouring inside her body for perhaps a year. He said he had no idea how she climbed a 6,000m peak with it in her body.” That year her father suffered a second cerebral stroke.

The next two years there was little time for summits, there were personal obstacles to overcome. In 2017, she missed an expedition as her father was still in hospital. Her finances were a shambles. She was also unhappy with the selection procedures of expedition organisers. And that is why she decided to go solo, plan and organise her own expeditions. With a new resolve she set out to explore the Nepal Himalayas.

Thame is a small Sherpa village in Nepal, close to the base camp of Mt Everest. Piyali had been told that it was the birthplace of Norgay. “During the trip (in 2017) I met quite a few Sherpas on their way back home from expeditions to Mt Everest. I even stayed in a Sherpa’s hut. They were quite impressed by my performance; someone even asked me whether I am actually a Sherpa,” she says with a wide grin.

In Kathmandu, she stopped at the office of Seven Summit Treks, a trekking and expedition company led by Mingma Sherpa, the youngest person to climb all mountains over 8,000 metres. When she made enquiries about an expedition to Mt Everest, it turned out that the season had ended. Besides, the estimated cost was around Rs 26 lakh. It was beyond her means. Mingma suggested she consider an expedition to Mt Manaslu, that would cost less than half the amount.

Piyali had initially jumped at the idea, but in time she realised that even arranging half the fund was no easy task. She decided to take a personal loan from a government bank. When she reached the Seven Summit Treks office on September 2 that year, she had collected barely half of required amount. “Initially, they were reluctant to take me but I put up at a dharamshala and kept badgering them. Finally, they decided to allow me to join the expedition on a loan,” she says. She shopped for cheap equipment. Eventually she hired some, and bought some used gear discarded by other mountaineers. She hitchhiked to the base camp on a truck amid pouring rain and a hailstorm. And when she reached, she discovered that most of the 200 climbers had already acclimatised themselves. “Not only did I not get any chance to acclimatise; on the contrary a respiratory infection I had contracted in Calcutta was worse,” she says.

But once she started climbing, she says, these things became a blur. She forgot everything and reached Camp Number 3 ahead of most climbers. Two Polish climbers were impressed by her spirit and skills. They told her about the legendary Polish mountaineer, Wanda Rutkiewicz, who had climbed eight 8,000-metre peaks.

On September 27, at 2.30pm, Piyali made it to the summit along with Sherpa Pemba Thendup. On her way back she slipped into a crack in the thin ice. “The Sherpa refused to help me. He said: ‘You will have to get out on your own if you want to go solo for tougher expeditions’,” recalls Piyali. Eventually, Piyali heaved herself out of the crevasse and trekked to the base camp. When she returned to Kathmandu, she was handed the summit certificate. But by then she had spent all her money.

As she boarded the train from Raxaul to Howrah, she was exhausted but happy.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> People / by Prasun Chaudhuri / May 25th, 2019

The basti that has given golf 200 caddies

Business & Economy, Sports

Madar Tala Colony in south Calcutta’s Tollygunge area is locally known as “Caddiebasti”

Caddies Sheikh Halim, Raju Sardar, Sundar Kanti and Sharif Ali have fixed clients at the two golf clubs in Calcutta /
Manasi Shah

adar Tala Colony in south Calcutta’s Tollygunge area is not very far from the two biggest golf clubs of the city — Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) and Tollygunge Club. Within it is a basti or slum like any other. Vegetable vendor on one side, meat shop on the other, a pedlar on a cycle van selling rat poison, a tyre repair shop, row upon row of cellular houses, sagging clothes lines heavy with laundry.

Locally, this settlement is known as “Caddiebasti”. Caddie, as in the person who lugs a player’s bag and clubs during a game of golf, for a fee. “Two hundred caddies live here with their families,” says Mohammed Rajesh. He is 40-plus, started out in his pre-teens as a ball boy. His father was a caddie too and his grandfather as well.

It is 9am and he has just returned after caddying for his regular clients since 5 in the morning. Now he is sitting at the doorstep of his one-room residence. His smartphone is playing a Hindi film song from the 90s.

Rajesh says a caddie has “fixed” clients who pay him on a monthly basis. Temporary clients pay them according to club rules. The rates depend on expertise, though all training is largely informal, picked up from watching a father or an elder brother.

Rajesh talks about how RCGC organised classes for him and his colleagues last year. “It was about the rules of the game and etiquette. Then we had to take an exam, for which we were marked and, thereafter, assigned categories. Some of us were in category A and others in category B,” says Rajesh. “I am in A,” he adds after a moment’s hesitation and just then a pressure cooker at a neighbour’s goes off loudly, as if whistling in appreciation.

Sundar Kanti, 34, has recently been promoted to category A, but he has lost some clients — not everyone wants to pay extra bucks. But the caddies appear to be a united bunch. “If you pay less, no one will caddie for you,” Sundar threatens some invisible bad client, his tone near rebellious.

Pappu, reed thin, in his twenties — he refuses to share his last name — looks younger than Rajesh and Sundar. And though it is difficult to imagine him shouldering a burden of almost 12 kilos on his frail shoulders every day for many hours at a stretch, fact is he has been caddying for the last eight years. He has seven fixed clients, he boasts.

Sandip Dey, a caddie at RCGC loves to play a shot or two of golf /
Manasi Shah

Fifty-year-old Sandip Dey seems to be sulking — whether that is his general demeanor or he is just tired, we cannot say. “A caddie has to fetch water for the saheb, clean the ball, hand him the club, hunt for the ball and fetch it,” he rattles off dispassionately.

The luxuriant golf course of RCGC is filled with cotton shrubs. There are cotton stubs, which can easily be mistaken for tiny golf balls. Sandip says, he is in this profession because he loves to play a shot or two. “Some clients let me,” he says, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Part of our job is also to humour clients,” interjects Goutam Hazra, 32. “It is a time-consuming sport and morales tend to wane,” he adds.

What about women caddies? Sheikh Halim, Raju Sardar and Sharif Ali, caddies all, break into a smirk as if it is a great joke. “There are no female caddies in India. But if you go to Thailand, America, you will find them,” 28-year-old Raju manages, in between giggles.

It is afternoon by now. The men of Caddiebasti are returning from “duty” in droves. They are dressed in tees, bermudas, some of them still have their caps on — all markers of the elite workspace they are part of and yet not quite part of. Some like Pappu will stray time and again — he says he tried his hand at various odd jobs — only to succumb to the lure of walking the green stretch.

Rajesh’s T-shirt reads “the Takeoff”. But his chatter and possibly dreams too don’t soar beyond golf. So what if his 12-year-old son is immune to golf’s magic? “You would have heard of Shiv Shankar Prasad Chawrasia,” he asks reverentially. Chawrasia is an Indian professional golfer; since 2008 he has won six Asian Tour events. Rajesh points eastwards and says, “He used to live there [in Bikramgarh] before he became so famous. His father was the greenskeeper at our club. And before he started to play, he was one of us, he used to work as a caddie.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online Edition / Home> People / Manasi Shah – November 25th, 2018

An unrecognised explorer

Amazing Feats, Green Initiatives / Environment, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All, Science & Technology, Sports, Travel, World Opinion

It’s time we do justice to Radhanath Sikdar, the man who first measured Mount Everest

All of us are aware from the days of our childhood that the highest mountain peak in the world is Mount Everest and it was discovered by George Everest. It was only much later that one came to know that Sir George Everest was the Surveyor General of India and the peak was so named as he had discovered it to be the highest in the world. As the Surveyor General, he had his offices in Dehradun and used to stay in Mussoorie. He left India in 1843, almost 200 years ago, but his house in Mussoorie is still being preserved and is now a place of tourist interest.

The truth, however, is somewhat different. It is a fact that Sir George Everest was the Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843, but it is also a fact that during his tenure of office, Mount Everest, that we know of today, was only known as ‘Peak XV’. Everest had neither initiated the process of measuring the height of this peak, nor was he instrumental in its naming, which was done much later, long after he had proceeded to England to enjoy his retirement after 1843. Located on the border of Nepal and Tibet, this ‘Peak XV’ has been worshipped as a holy place by the Tibetans, who called it Chomolungma, the Mother Goddess of the World. In Nepal, this peak is known as Sagarmatha, meaning the peak of heavens. Even these days, this peak is addressed by its traditional names, both in Tibet and Nepal, while we have followed what was given to us by the British ie Mount Everest.

In fact, the name Everest was given by Col Sir Andrew Waugh of Bengal Engineers, who succeeded Everest as the Surveyor General of India from 1844 to 1861. Circumstances under which ‘Peak XV’ was named as Mount Everest are rather peculiar and reveal a very biased handling of the matter so that the entire credit goes to the British officers of the East India Company. Going through the historical records of the Survey of India Volume IV: 1830 to 1843, pertaining to the tenure of Sir George Everest, one can observe at a glance that he had shown no interest in ‘Peak XV’ during this period. It was his successor, Andrew Waugh, who made the official announcement of ‘Peak XV’ being the highest known peak of the world in 1856, the measurements had, of course, been initiated much earlier and finalised by our own Radha Nath Sikdar in 1849.

Recognising the work of Sikdar, the Government of India had issued a postage stamp in his honour in 2004. But his work is of such a great importance that issuing a postage stamp and then forgetting about him does not do full justice to his unique and great contribution. It was Sir George Everest who had recruited Sikdar in the great trigonometrical survey and became extremely fond of him. Volume IV of the Historical records of Survey of India, pertaining to his tenure, have the following mention about Sikdar: “Radanauth is high in favour with everybody, and universally beloved in the GT Survey. You will not know him for the same person when you see him again, for he is no longer a puny stripling, but a hardy energetic young man, ready to undergo any fatigue, and acquire a practical knowledge of all parts of his profession. …There are few of my instruments which he cannot manage; and none of my computations of which he is not thoroughly master. …Eventually he will furnish a convincing proof that the aptitude of your countrymen for the practical, as well as the theoretical, parts of mathematics is in no wise inferior to that of Europeans.”

“Of the qualifications of the young man himself I cannot speak too highly. In his mathematical attainments there are few in India, whether European or Native, who can at all compete with him, and…even in Europe those attainments would rank very high.”

Later, on account of a special technique developed by Sikdar for accurate computation of heights and distances through Spherical Trigonometry, he virtually became indispensable to the organisation and rose to become the Chief Computer in the office of SGI. In that position, he moved from Dehradun to Kolkata in 1849. As to why Andrew Waugh gave the name Everest, even though he had left the scene long ago, is an interesting piece of history.

Had SG Burrard, a later Surveyor General of India, not acknowledged the good work of Radhanath Sikdar through a research paper published in 1904 in the scientific journal Nature, these facts would not have come to light. He published in detail various steps taken for the measurement of ‘Peak XV’. This in a way also exposed the machinations of Andrew Waugh who had tried his level best to take credit away from, to where it truly belonged, that is Radhanath Sikdar.

It is human nature that in case something important is achieved, one tries to take credit or gives credit to someone, but in this case, Waugh specifically mentioned that Sikdar had nothing to do with this work, indicating his bias. Later, he could be seen placating him by asking him that he should be happy that the peak had been named after his mentor. Andrew Waugh also gave the additional charge of the Indian Metrological Department to Sikdar, raising his salary to Rs 600 per month. This was unheard for an Indian in those days. Clearly, all these efforts were to keep him happy but away from the core of the survey work.

SG Burrard’s publication in the Nature specifically mentioned that the Chief Computer (who was Radhanath Sikdar) from Calcutta had informed Andrew Waugh in 1852 that the peak designated ‘XV’ had been found to be higher than any other highest measured peak in the world at that time. Raw data from theodolites, taken from seven observation stations at Jirol, Mirzapur, Janjpati, Ladiva, Haripur, Minai and Doom Dongi was collected at the trigonometrical survey at Calcutta. This was then processed by Radhanath Sikdar and conveyed to Andrew Waugh that ‘Peak XV’ had been measured at 29,002 feet, taking the mean value of all observations. Considering that the scientific instrumentation available at that time was only of a rudimentary nature, the level of accuracy reached was almost 100 per cent, and this figure has not undergone any change, despite the current state of technological progress.

Correspondence between Waugh and Sikdar reveals that Waugh did privately acknowledge the achievement of Sikdar but did not recognise his work on record and in public. In his letter dated August 25, 1856, Waugh wrote to Sikdar that he was glad to hear that naming the peak as Everest had given the latter a lot of satisfaction. Thus, it is clear that the name Everest was given to ensure that Sikdar, who could have been the rightful claimant for credit, did not object as he was extremely fond of Everest, who had recruited him in service. The situation would have remained obscure but for the research paper of SG Burrard in 1904. Later, Professor Meghnad Saha acknowledged this feat in 1938 by giving Sikdar full credit. Earlier, Kenneth Mason in 1928, recognised his work as also John Keay in his book, The Great Arc.

In the given situation, changing the name of Mount Everest to Mount Sikdar Everest will perhaps do full justice to Radhanath Sikdar and give him worldwide recognition, which was legitimately his due, long time ago. We do not have to seek anybody’s approval for such a change as the rationale is all well-documented. Even if the world continues to call it Everest, in India, we could still call it Sikdar Everest.

On several earlier occasions, achievements of Indian scientists have not been recognised, as Sir JC Bose could have got the Nobel Prize for Physics or at least shared it with Marconi for his work on wireless and radio; SN Bose could have got the Nobel Prize way back in 1932 for his work with Einstein on Bose Einstein condensate but atleast he was recognised, though belatedly naming the God particle, Higgs-Boson after him. Naming Everest as Sikdar Everest would be a recoginition of a scientist whose work has stood the test of time. Besides it would also justifiably add to our national pride.

(The writer is a retired Delhi Police Commissioner and former Uttarakhand Governor)

source:http://www.thepioneer.com / The Pioneer / Home> Columnists> Opinion / by K K Paul / November 23rd, 2018

Badminton: How Subhankar Dey overcame India snub and loneliness in Europe to win SaarLorLux Open

Records, All, Sports, World Opinion

Dey, who ran away from home to keep playing badminton and travels without a coach, defeated England’s Rajiv Ouseph in straight games in the final.

Sven Heise/Badminton Photo via Subhankar Dey

On the eve of the biggest final of his career, Subhankar Dey went out with his roommate to walk through a local fair in Saarbrucken, Germany, and kept telling himself that winning the SaarLorLux Open title was the last thing he has to worry about.

After all, the 25-year-old had never imagined playing in a Super 100 final, leave aside winning a title, when he ran away from his home in Kolkata eight years ago because he wanted to pursue the sport while his mother wanted him to take up the Food Corporation of India job offered to him.

But on Sunday, the world number 64 showed the temperament of a champion and the guile of a battle-hardened journeyman to upset fifth seed Rajiv Ouseph 21-11, 21-14 and clinch the biggest title of his career.

It had been a phenomenal week for Dey as he overcame former World and Olympic champion Lin Dan in the second round and saved two match points in the semi-finals against China’s Ren Pengbo before booking his spot in the final.

“My only dream was to become a professional badminton player and I had to struggle even for that,” said Dey, while trying to control his emotions. “But I am thankful to my parents and especially my elder sister who stood by me and this title is dedicated to them.”

He added, “Even after beating Lin Dan, all I told myself was that I am playing well and should make the most of it. So I prepared similarly for the next-round match and thankfully I played very well [against Toby Penty].”

Career struggles
To say that Dey’s journey from the cement courts of Kolkata to the podium in Saarbrucken was difficult would be an understatement.

After leaving home, the youngster trained for couple of years with Shrikant Vad at the Syed Modi Academy in Thane before hopping through various training centres in India, as some coaches had problems with his approach while others couldn’t accommodate him for long.

With his career going nowhere, a break to play in the Danish League for Greve Strands Club provided Dey with an opportunity to hone his skills further and also play more international tournaments thanks to his base in Europe.

“Yes, playing for a club in Europe helped me play more tournaments,” Dey said. “But it was difficult to live all by myself. There used to be no one to talk to and once after winning the Portugal Open title in 2017 I spent two days at the airport because I wanted to see people and interact with them.”

Dey, who lived with a family in Denmark that did not charge him money as their child also played in the same club, would spend all his prize money, his Railways salary and the funds given by his elder sister to play tournaments and record his own matches as he never had anyone to coach him there.

He also began following the European system of studying his opponent’s videos and planning his match strategy in the absence of a coach.

The changes brought the desired results as he won the Iceland International and Portugal International in 2017 and also reached the semi-finals of the Senior Nationals in Nagpur last year after beating 2017 Singapore Superseries champion B Sai Praneeth.

He was, however, still overlooked for the national camp probably because he had left it midway back in 2014 when he was sent to Bengaluru to train with Saina Nehwal, while the rest of the men’s shuttlers were practising at Hyderabad.

Opening an academy
Instead of getting demotivated by the snub, Dey worked towards starting his own academy in Kolkata to provide local players and even those in India who are overlooked by the big centres an opportunity to train with quality coaches.

While he was clear that he had many years of badminton left in him, he hired Indonesian coach Nur Mustaqim Chayo to work with the trainees. Dey himself has been training at the same centre for the past few months.

“I never got an opportunity to train at the national camps or the big centres like Gopichand Academy or Padukone Academy,” said the shuttler, who is supported by the Lakshya NGO. “I was even asked to leave a few academies, while I couldn’t settle in some. So I decided to start an academy of my own and I am happy to finally work with the coach on my game.”

The academy, managed by his elder cousin Somnath Kar, has allowed Dey to focus solely on his training and preparations. In the SaarLorLux Open final, he showcased his ability to read the game and make a solid game plan as he did not allow Ouseph to attack and use his height advantage. “I did a lot of homework and it paid off. I watched his games. I was patient and knew I had nothing to lose,” he said.

The title would have definitely helped him gain confidence that his chosen way of putting in the hard yards do deliver the goods.

source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Badminton / by Abhijeet Kulkarni / November 05th, 2018

Kolkata girl crosses English Channel

Amazing Feats, Records, All, Sports, World Opinion

Kolkata, (PTI):

Twenty-two-year-old city girl Amrita Das crossed the English Channel, completing the 34-km challenge in 13 hours and 42 minutes.

An understudy of Masudur Rahman Baidya, the first double amputee below the knee to cross the channel, Amrita began at 6.19 am (GMT) from the Shakespeare beach in Dover, England and swam across the channel, reaching France at 8.01 pm (GMT) on September 4.

She could have bettered the timing if Amrita did not veer off course due to strong currents, Baidya said.

“There were high tidal waves that blew her off-course and she had to remain static for about an hour before resuming swimming,” Baidya, who has conquered the English Channel (1997) and the Strait of Gibraltar (2001), told PTI.

Baidya said Amrita had started started her preparation long ago.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India – Online Edition / September 06th, 2010

Virtual boat race for students

Sports

100 schools from city & districts to take part in contest

School students test their strength on indoor rowing machines at Calcutta Rowing Club on Sunday. Picture by Gautam Bose

Calcutta:

Fifty schools from the city and as many from 10 districts will take part in a rowing contest without water or racing boats.

The tournament, to start on Monday, will see the students pull hard on indoor rowing machines, which will be wired to a laptop, to cover a 250m lap.

A projector will be used to beam the virtual race on a big screen for everyone to see and cheer.

Accomplished rowers from the city schools will be barred from participating in the tournament.

“The idea is to introduce newcomers to the sport. So, accomplished rowers in the city schools will not be allowed to participate in the contest. In the districts, there are hardly any rowing facilities,” said Shakil Ahmed of Bengal Water Sports, which is organising the tournament in association with the Bengal Olympic Association and Calcutta Rowing Club.

The tournament will be held in three age categories – U-12, U-15 and U-18. Three teams – one in each category- will be selected from each boys’ or girls’ school and six teams from each co-educational institution.

Each team will have three members.

The winning teams will vie with one another at the district level. The district champions will lock horns at the state-level contest to represent the “rest of Bengal” in each age category at the national meet.

Similarly, the best teams from the city will represent Calcutta at the national meet.

The national champions will represent India in the final, to be held in Calcutta on December 2.

Schools from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal will take part in the final contest.

A demo for novices was held at Calcutta Rowing Club on Sunday. Nitu Shaw, a Class IX student of Andrew’s High School, was ecstatic after trying her hand at a virtual boat race.

“The next time I row, I will do much better. It was thrilling to see the boats move ahead on the big screen as we rowed. It was a tough battle between me and the girl next to me for the second position,” she said.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Rith Basu / September 10th, 2018

Squash wins back its star, India gets medal

Records, All, Sports, World Opinion

Calcutta boy’s sport-or-job battle

Ramit Tandon at Saturday Club on Monday.
Picture by Gautam Bose

Calcutta:

Ramit Tandon’s journey from La Martiniere for Boys in Calcutta to the winners’ podium at the 2018 Asian Games hasn’t followed the usual curve of sporting success achieved through sweat and the sacrifice of myriad other ambitions.

The 26-year-old, who also studied at Columbia University, was till a year ago analysing equity and debt markets sitting in the New York office of a hedge fund. Squash remained his passion, but primarily as a leisure activity.

Last Friday, Ramit won an Asian Games bronze in Jakarta along with teammates Saurav Ghosal, Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu and Mahesh Mangaonkar, all three of them regulars in the competition circuit.

Ramit had quit his job in New York to turn pro only last November. His Professional Squash Association (PSA) ranking then was above 600. Over the next few months, he won two PSA titles to break into the top 60, good enough to earn him a spot in the Indian team for the Asian Games.

“I used to badly miss being in competitive squash. The travelling, the pressure (to perform), the adrenaline rush and, of course, the honour of representing the country,” Ramit told Metro at the Saturday Club, where he hits a ball or two whenever he is in town.

At the Asian Games, Ramit won all but one of his matches. He counts his performance against Qatar in a crunch match in the group stage as his personal favourite. He did not play a match in the semifinal against Hong Kong because the two players before him had lost theirs, making the rest of the contest inconsequential.

While the gold medal eluded India, Ramit sees the bronze as a vindication of his decision to become a squash pro.

So, what made him finally choose squash over a shirt-and-tie career? “Hedge funds require balancing risk and return. I thought it was time I did it for myself instead of clients,” he said. “I was earning well. I had to factor in so many things, including the possibility of a comeback to my earlier career if I failed in squash.”

As a student, Ramit had been regarded as a promising player in the junior circuit. Between 2001 and 2011, Ramit had won a string of national championships in successive age groups. He was the captain of the India Under-19 team that won a gold medal in the Asian Junior Championships in Sri Lanka in 2011.

But studies won the competition when it came to choosing a career. “I had had a decent schooling. When I got a chance to study at Columbia University, I did not want to let go of it. After my graduation in statistics, I got an analyst’s job with Birch Grove,” he recalled.

Now that squash has won back what it lost, Ramit intends to be loyal to the sport. And nobody’s complaining.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Debraj Mitra / September 04th, 2018

London Bongs go all out for England

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, NRI's / PIO's, Sports, World Opinion

Bengalis from London gather at a Wetherspoons pub to cheer England in the quarter-final against Sweden

Calcutta:

It’s coming home… With old favourites Brazil and Argentina out of the World Cup, Bengalis in England are joining the rest of the country in chanting the choral lyric to the 1996 No. 1 single Three Lions (referring to the English football team’s logo).

“The lyrics are being put up as social media status, memes are getting forwarded on it…” said Sourav Niyogi, a resident of central London.

A video clip he forwarded to Metro had Jaya Bachchan beaming towards the door, silver tray and diya in hand, but instead of the title track of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham there is the Three Lions chorus playing and in place of Shah Rukh Khan, it’s England captain Harry Kane running in with a FIFA World Cup cut-out.

“Streets are getting empty when England is playing. People are hanging flags from houses and cars. Yesterday, I saw a group break into the song at Liverpool Street station,” said Saikat Roy Chowdhury, an IT professional. “Till the other week, our WhatsApp group was divided into supporters of Brazil, Argentina and Germany. Now we are all united under St George’s Cross,” said the 42-year-old.

“Nobody expected England to go this far. This team has no superstar. People have been caught by surprise at how well they have done,” said Tushi Banerjee, a Lionel Messi fan who had “wanted him to go all the way”. Now she buys chart paper for her six-year-old son Ryan to prepare charts with scores of England’s matches.

Saikat and another 60-odd members of the Bengali community group London Sharad Utsav (LSU) had gone for a seaside picnic at Margate on Saturday. “We wrapped up quickly to watch England play at the local Wetherspoons pub.”

Suranjan Som, general secretary of LSU, explains: “Those who come from Calcutta tend to stick to their respective football loyalties – Brazil or Argentina – initially. But as they gradually get sucked into British life and the English Premier League, their loyalty starts shifting towards England. But this time there is no division.”

Prasenjit Bhatacharjee, who has put his sky-blue-and- white jersey away and taken out his England shirt, has started a winner prediction poll on Facebook. “Of course, England has got the most votes,” he laughed. “The average age of this team is only 26. Seventeen members of this squad were not even born when England last reached the semi-final in 1990.”

Indians of other communities are excited about the on-going cricket series. “But for Bengalis, the World Cup is a bigger talking point,” he said.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Sudeshna Banerjee / July 11th, 2018

A loyal mariner

Records, All, Sports, World Opinion

Know your neighbour—Compton Dutta, FD Block

Compton Dutta tries to defend against Pele at Eden Gardens in 1977. A Telegraph file picture

September 24, 1977. New York Cosmos was to face Mohun Bagan. But the ground at Eden Gardens was slippery after a shower. Pele was in two minds about taking the field. But the galleries were roaring his name in chorus. That warmed his heart. He decided to play. “And he played the entire match,” recalls Compton Dutta, who was a part of the Bagan XI.

Seated in the drawing room on the first floor of his FD Block house, Dutta proudly revisits the match. “They went ahead by a goal scored by Alberto, who was Brazil’s captain in the 1970 World Cup. Then (Mohd) Habib and Shyam (Thapa) scored for us and we were up 2-1. But the referee gave a penalty in the dying moments amid an uproar. We asked Pele if it was a penalty. When he nodded in negation, we requested him to tell so to the referee. In broken English, he said the referee was the supreme authority. Thus the match ended in a draw.”

But what he saw of Pele later left a lasting impression. “There was a party in the evening at Grand Hotel where many had gatecrashed. When Pele got on the dais Dhiren-da (Dey, the Mohun Bagan secretary) placed a silver crown on his head.” In a short speech, Pele said to be a good player one has to be good human being first. So unruly was the crowd that when he went to have dinner, he was being pushed around from all sides and sweating, yet never did the smile waver from his lips. That showed that he really walked the talk.” That is why, in Dutta’s eyes, Pele will always be greater than Maradona.

The Cosmos match motivated the Mariners so much that they won the triple crown that year — ILA Shield, Rovers Cup and Durand Cup. “Ours was a star-studded team then — with Prasun (Banerjee), Gautam Sarkar, Ulaganathan, Habib, Akbar, Shyam and (Subhas) Bhowmik.”

It was time for Mohun Bagan to turn around after a period of humiliation. The club had lost almost every time to arch-rivals East Bengal between 1970 and 1975. Dutta rose up the ranks at Southern Sports Association and then Kalighat Club, marking his entry in first division football. He also debuted for Bengal in Santosh Trophy in 1974. He joined Mohun Bagan in 1975.

“Dhiren-da and (Sailen) Manna-da reared me with parental care. Subrata (Bhattacharya) and Prasun had joined the year before. Ulganathan was also there.” But it was East Bengal that had all the reigning stars. In 1975, in the IFA Shield final, the red-and-gold brigade rubbed it in with a crushing 5-0 scoreline on Mohun Bagan’s own turf. “I was fielded in the second half of that match,” Dutta says.

The turnaround started the next year with a 1-0 victory over East Bengal in the league. By then, the club had managed to wean away P.K. Banerjee as coach and then, Bhowmik and Samaresh Chowdhury from the red-and-gold ranks. Club transfers in those days were the stuff of thrillers. Footballers were sometimes made to sign on the dotted line at gunpoint.

Compton Dutta at the entrance of his FD Block house.
(Saradindu Chaudhury)

Transfer tales

Dutta recalls Shyam Thapa’s entry to Mohun Bagan. “Shyam was playing the nationals in Patna. The final was over and the team was staying at a guest house with East Bengal musclemen on guard outside the gate. Late at night, they fell in a stupor after a few drinks. Mohun Bagan recruiters flashed burning match sticks at a distance in the dark as signal to Shyam. He collected his kit and climbed down through the window of the bathroom. A car was waiting for him and he was whisked away to Dehradun and then Delhi. News spread like wildfire that Shyam had escaped. But when his flight was landing at Dum Dum, Manna-da was ready on the tarmac with a police contingent. So there was no way East Bengal could snatch him back.”

A loyal Mariner all his life, Dutta faced the strong arm of the club only once. “Hemen Mondol and Omar worked for Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting respectively while Jiban and Paltu were the musclemen for East Bengal.” Once he came home to hear a fair and well-built man wanted to see him. “I realised who he was when he gave his name. He said word was doing the rounds that Bidesh (Bose) and I were considering a shift to East Bengal and Dhirenda wanted to meet us. Despite protests, he made us get into his car and reach the tent. Dhirenda was surprised to see us and told him not to worry about our loyalty.”

Football passion in those days ran high. Waiting in queue for a ticket overnight was common. “I have known people to sleep in the open for two nights also,” he says. “When we won, there were celebrations in Mohun Bagan localities. Sweets would be distributed, flags would be hung and songs would be played on the loudspeaker.” But if the team lost crunch matches or even drew against small teams, there would be hell to pay. “Irate supporters badmouthed us and torched vehicles on Red Road.”

Dutta had the misfortune of staying in an East Bengal para — Jadavpur. “Sometimes I would be called names as I would pass by on my bike. I always stopped and protested. Once I returned home after a derby win to find the ambience tense. A local boy had come up to our second floor place and abused my mother. Ignoring her plea, I stormed out to see who it was. The boy was not home but I told his mother that his behaviour was unacceptable and I wanted to meet him. Of course, he never came but others dragged him to our house to seek an apology. Years later, the same boy would be among neighbours coming to me for tickets.”

Tragedy strikes

He became Mohun Bagan captain in 1980. The same year on July 16, Indian football witnessed a black day with 16 spectators dying during a derby at Eden Gardens. “The common belief is the violence was sparked by the on-field altercation between Bidesh and Dilip Palit.”

But Dutta offers a different account. “The violence erupted before the match started. We saw people being carried out by the police as we walked out of the dressing room. We did not realise they were dead.” He blames the thoughtless distribution of tickets that allowed supporters of both teams to sit together. “And when police appeared at the top of the tier to lathicharge the crowd in D1 — the only block in the stadium then to have an upper tier — spectators tried to jump down 20 feet to the lower tier or were already crushed in the stampede.”

His senior international career took off with the 1978 trip to Bangkok for Asian Games. He would go on to play two Nehru Gold Cups, two Merdeka Tournaments, President’s Cup, King’s Cup and pre-Olympics. But it is the 1982 Asiad in Delhi that is at the top of his mind. “A preparatory camp was held for two years at the site where Salt Lake stadium was being built. We were put up in under-construction flats in Karunamoyee,” recalls the right-back who would move into Salt Lake much later, in 1995.

But the sore point was the payment on national duty — a paltry Rs 2000 per month for two years — in place of the club pay cheques ranging from Rs 70,000 to a lakh a year. Sensing the discontent, an option was given and 21 players opted out. “Ours was a valid point. But the media portrayed us as traitors to the country. We started getting heckled everywhere. Finally Priyada (Priyaranjan Dasmunshi) called a meeting and mediated a truce. The AIFF agreed to take back six players, including me.”

Fighting with fever

During the trials, Dutta was down with malaria yet he was kept in the team. “We drew against China and won against Malaysia and Bangladesh. After every match, I would need saline injection at the medical unit. In the quarter-final, Pradip-da (P.K. Banerjee, coach) asked if I was up for it. I said yes. He promised to substitute me whenever I would raise my hand as signal of exhaustion. I fell frothing at the mouth after half time but there was no substitution despite my repeated signals. After I was finally taken off, I was just changing into a track suit when Sudeep Chatterjee, my substitute, blundered at the top of the box resulting in a last minute goal. Pradipda was weeping bitterly.” Only then did he realise that there were just two minutes left. “Had I known, I would have carried on.”

He did get to play at Salt Lake Stadium at the fag end of his career. “It was such an improvement from the sticky mud of the Eden surface which stuck to our studs in the monsoon.”

Another count on which he considers the present generation lucky is the live telecast of matches. Communication was nil when they went abroad. “Once on Puja-eve, we were returning from a match in Pyongyang, North Korea via Moscow. We had to take a roundabout route as India were denied access to China airspace in those days. But word spread that our flight had crashed. It was only after we reached that we found the reason for the grim atmosphere at the local Puja pandals.”

Watching the Asian teams assert themselves at the on-going Fifa World Cup, he laments the decline of India’s standard. “We don’t even play the top teams in the continent now. The Indian Super League (ISL) may be a well-marketed event but will it help Indian football?” he wonders.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Sudeshna Banerjee / June 29th, 2018

City girls set for world debut

Education, Records, All, Sports, World Opinion

Six rowing champs part of 10-member India team

(From left to right) Aishwarya, Shreya, Shramana, Shweta, Shreyaa and Semanti at the Bengal Rowing Club. Pictures by Bishwarup Dutta

Calcutta:

Six girls from Calcutta will be part of the 10-member Indian women’s team for the World University Rowing Championship to be held in Shanghai from August 10 to 13.

Some 500 participants from 25 countries, including the US, the UK, Germany and Australia, will compete at the Shanghai Water Sports Centre in Qingpu district.

The finalists were selected at a trial camp in Chandigarh on June 18.

The top rowers from Indian universities attended the camp. The Calcutta contingent comprised four girls from Jadavpur University and two from Calcutta University.

Team JU

Semanti Choudhury, Shramana Saha and sisters Shreyaa and Shweta Brahmachari had won gold in the 2000m women’s fours in the national university championships at Chandigarh earlier this month.

The win was special because the team edged out Punjab University, the hot favourites, by 1.5 seconds.

“It is going to be a huge challenge in China,” Semanti, who has just completed her MSc in economics at Jadavpur University, said.

The senior-most in the group, she’s been rowing for more than a decade. Painting is her other passion.

Shreyaa, the older of the Brahmachari sisters, is doing her MSc in Chemistry from JU. “For me, it is labs and lakes,” Shreyaa, who lives in Southern Avenue, said. She got introduced to the lakes while taking swimming lessons at Anderson Club.

She shifted to rowing in 2009 at the Lake Club. Early morning trainings made her leave the bed at 5am. The two sisters slept together and it was their mother who prodded the younger daughter, Shweta, to follow suit.

“You, too, should get up early. Why don’t you join her for rowing,” Shweta remembered her mother telling her.

Shreyaa won her first medal (bronze) in 2010, the first time she took part in the sub-junior nationals in Roorkee. Shweta started rowing in the winter of 2010 and within six months, won gold in the sub-junior nationals in Calcutta.

Shramana, a first-year English honours student at JU, loves playing the double bass guitar. “I hardly have a social life. For me, the strings and the oars complement each other,” she said.

Team CU

Aishwarya Krishnan and Shreya Iyer, childhood buddies turned rowing partners, together won Bengal’s lone gold medal in the Senior National Championships in Pune last December.

The duo defeated Chandigarh and Odisha in the 500m women’s double sculls.

Shreya has just completed her graduation in psychology from Loreto College. Aishwarya studies commerce in St Xavier’s College. Both started rowing when they were in school, one after the other. The turning point in their careers came in 2015 when they became partners in double sculls. The two have since won several medals.

“We are super excited. Our strength is our chemistry,” Shreya said.

Rowing apart, Aishwarya is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. Shreya’s other passion is violin.

The training

Shweta and Shramana are members of the Bengal Rowing Club. The rest are Lake Club members.

All six will leave for the training camp in Chandigarh in a few days.

But they are already into full throttle practice mode at the Rabindra Sarobar lake.

Shreya and Aishwarya are focusing on double sculls while the four from Jadavpur are training for women’s fours.

They are training in two shifts at the moment – early morning and evening.

Apart from boat sessions, long-distance running, ergometers and gymmimg are part of their schedule.

All four are on a junk-free and high-protein diet.

“We have not competed with so many formidable teams on an international level earlier. But we will give everything we have got,” Aishwarya said.