Parents realize their dream through their kids

Last week Achanta Sharat Kamal won the Arjuna Award for Table Tennis. He happens to be the son of my Table Tennis coach in Chennai. My coaches Srinivasa Rao and Muralidhar Rao were popular coaches during that period (90’s) and Sharat Kamal is the son of Srinivas Rao. After reading the news about the Arjuna Award I started thinking about how some parents derive immense pleasure by realizing their dreams through their offsprings. If the parent has not been able to achieve a particular goal, it is natural for them to aspire for the same by pushing their son / daughter to achieve the same goal. Such stories abound in the field of arts (music, acting etc) and sports.

Sharat Kamal used to attend the same coaching class as mine. The kind of dedication he had for the game was amazing. He went on to represent India in the Olympics last year. He lost in the second round to a person from Hong Kong.

I’m sure this Arjuna Award must have been one of the greatest moments in Srinivasa Rao’s life. Even though he has coached so many people, the joy he would derive from his son’s accomplishment would be immense. The sacrifices that parents undergo to see their kids achieve such a position is something phenomenal. I have seen some parents (who happened to be PSU Bank employees) who resigned their jobs to accompany their son/daughter for global chess tournaments.

I took to TT sometime in 9th standard and started progressing quite well. I had major regrets because I started quite late in life. Most of the others who came for the coaching class were kids from Primary School. During 10th I had to make a call between sports and education (because my parents felt that both can’t co-exist). My (boring) defence oriented game earned me the nickname of “Wall”. Any resemblance with the other Wall is purely coincidental.

During 11th standard I tried to get into a school, which hosted the TT event of the SAF Games in Chennai. My application was turned down. I gave up TT after that. If I had made it big, I would have probably followed the treaded path of joining a PSU like Railways / ONGC / IA / AI / IOC / RBI. This is the standard route which other State ranking / National ranking players take. I haven’t tracked their careers and hence can’t say much about what they are doing now. Some of them will eventually become coaches. Some of them start fading once they get a PSU job.

I am glad that cricket was kept out of the awards this time. Other sports have been neglected (both by the media and the government) for a long time and it is high time we start encouraging the sportspersons in other fields as well.

TT has taken a back seat in recent times. Any good paddlers around?