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The city’s young table tennis players always yearn for the summer when various coaching camps spring up across the Maidan. The Khudiram Anushilan Kendra is one of the most popular destinations for TT’s young guns during this time of the year.
As the venue is hosting this year’s summer camp, there’s a whole new chapter unfolding —for the first time ever in the history of TT in Kolkata, the camp has opened its doors to the mentally-challenged who have a keen interest in pursuing the game but don’t get the scope to hone their skill otherwise.
Full marks to the month-long summer camp’s promoters — Indian Oil Corporation, the Bengal Table Tennis Association and TV production house Xtra Time. But the real face behind the novel initiative of bringing over 30 mentally-challenged students at this annual camp is one Rabi Chatterjee.
He is no former TT stalwart. Nor is he a heavyweight official in the game. But Chatterjee is revered as the most dedicated backer of TT programmes for youngsters in the state. He has been doing this for close to a whopping 40 years.
In his 60s now, Chatterjee recalls the early days of the hugely successful experiment of imparting TT coaching lessons to cerebrally-disadvantaged school students.
“The idea struck us first when we were going through a five-day camp in Kolkata for the Special Olympics in March. Next month, Anilava Chatterjee from a production house dropped the first suggestions that TT enthusiasts from among the mentally-challenged could be brought together for a special camp. There was no looking back. After weeks of hard work, we finally created the special category group for this summer’s camp at the Khudiram Anushilan Kendra. It has 30 participants now,” said Chatterjee.
Not that the 30-day camp has lost its usual flair and seriousness. Sixteen professional coaches are in charge of making the kids go through the paces with a total of 120 youngsters taking part in the event. The three schools which are sending over mentally-challenged wards are Morning Glory, Sahayogi and Kishalay (Hooghly).
Ask Chatterjee what inspired him to make the special programme for mentally-challenged kids possible and he gets emotional. “One has to come over and see with his own eyes to understand the pulse of what these mentally-challenged kids go through at the camp. They don’t have any getaways in their life. So, this coaching camp becomes an important part of their life. I can never forget some special moments when they brought tears to my eyes with the manner in which they strived to play the game like normal players. That’s the whole point — we have to constantly make them feel that they are very much normal people,” said Chatterjee, who has been organising various TT events and camps since 1969.
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