(Image source from: Rahul Dravid recollects memories in his school})
When Rahul Dravid has set his foot in the premises of his school, St. Joseph’s Boys High School, on Saturday, he proudly saw himself as an old boy of the school. Dravid visited his school for the inauguration of Loyola Sports Complex.
Loyola Sports Complex valued Rs.16-crore facilitaes a swimming pool, indoor cricket pitches, a table tennis hall, snooker tables, a basketball court, besides other activity rooms. Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, was also scheduled to take part in the event, even though he did not make it.
Mr. Dravid began his speech saying that, “In my cricketing career, I’ve been asked to do various things on various occasions to fill in for people. I’ve been asked to open the batting, keep wicket and even captain the team at times. But I’ve never been asked to actually replace the Chief Minister of Karnataka to do anything.”
Quite a few other sports people attended the event along with the 42-year-old cricketer, who include Trishul Chinnappa (golf), Austin Almeida (basketball), Sandeep Somesh (hockey), Hakimuddin Habibullah (swimming), M. Arvind (swimming) and Anup Sridhar (badminton). Politicians like Infrastructure Development Minister, R. Roshan Baig, and Shantinagar MLA, N.A. Haris, also took part in the event.
“When I was here 25–26 years ago, we had to go all the way to Webb’s ground after school to practice for the cricket tournaments. Today, with a beautiful new facility, the boys will just have to climb a few steps to walk up to the indoor cricket centre to practice. So many of my friendships were actually built and nurtured on this very ground 26 years ago. Those bonds exist to this day because we played sport together,” Dravid said.
“You always follow how your school does in sporting events - it never leaves you. Even today, when I wake up and look at the sports pages of the newspapers, I look for St. Joseph’s - be it the hockey team playing the Centenary Shield and the Fr. Eric Vaz Shield, or the cricket team playing the Cottonian Shield and the KSCA tournaments. It brings back some great memories. It brings back the memory of me playing hockey on this field with Sandeep Somesh and Anil Adrin. Watching Sandeep and Anil play hockey made me realize that taking up another sport was probably better.”
-Sumana
