House of Hoops: How five sisters from Varanasi made Indian Basketball a family business

This feature was originally published for NBA.com/India in July, 2016.

Varanasi, many believe, is the oldest living city in the world, a civilization in perpetual existence for thousands of years. While the outside world was destroyed and rebuilt, Varanasi’s essence remained the same. Devotees begin their day early in the morning, at the crack of dawn, with blessings from the Ganga, moving on to yoga by the ghats, a cup of chai at the Chawk, visits to the Sankat Mochan and Vishwanath temples, Ganga Arti at Dashashwamedha Ghat in the evening, and a final ring of the bell to call it a very early night.

The city’s personality is a dual acceptance of discipline of ritual and a creative expression of one’s free-soul, what locals call being ‘mast’. And it is this balance that eventually produced the most unlikely by-product of this ancient city. Not its saris, its carpets, or paan. Not the ghats, lassis, or educational institutions. But a culture of basketball like no other.

Specifically, one particular house of hoops – the Singhs – an incredible family of five sisters who have made an indelible mark in contemporary Indian basketball. Varanasi’s Singh Sisters – Priyanka (36), Divya (33), Prashanti (30), Akanksha (27), and Pratima (26) – have made basketball a family business. Divya, Prashanti, Akanksha, and Pratima have all played for the Indian National team, and two of them have even been national captains. Priyanka played for the UP State team. And Divya, now, is blossoming into one of India’s finest young basketball coaches.

Prashanti, sister number three and a national team regular, credits the energy of her hometown to her family’s basketball success. “The vibration in Varanasi is very different,” she says. “You step into the city - people come from across the world and feel different there. There are cultural differences and difficulties everywhere, but there is a positive feeling here. It’s a simple place. People are sensitive and focused because there aren’t many distractions.”

“There is no night life, so we have early mornings! For Indian sportsperson, this is required: to be a morning person. Lifestyle of Varanasi both mast and disciplined. It's an amazing place, and in our case, it really helped.”

Unlike a lot of stories of Indian athletes, the Singh Sisters had no pedigree of sports in the previous generation. Their father is a Senior Branch Manager at Allahabad Bank in the Shivpur area of the city and the mother a former teacher turned housewife. The sisters, however, took advantage of the Udai Pratap (UP) College to hone their basketball skills, in a golden era for the city when one coach at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) center helped briefly make Varanasi into the basketball capital of the nation.

Prashanti also credits the intellectual culture in the city for making the sisters into cerebral as well as physical players. “This city,” Prashanti says. “It’s not fashionable, but it’s intellectual. People may look simple, but they are intelligent.”

“All of us [sisters] have a strong academic background because of our father, who attended IIT Kharagpur. We had no sports background, even though we had the physical ability, a natural built from our village ancestors. But basketball requires more than that; it’s not easy game. It’s a game that requires quick decision-making. Only physical ability doesn't help, this is a smart person's game. We always had focus on intelligence and academics, and that helped us a lot.”

Like the devotees by the ghats, the sisters followed their own ritual in the city. Basketball practice in the morning, school, and more basketball practice, repeated with absolute discipline to perfect their basketball skills. But basketball is more than a game of discipline; and it took a dash of local creativity – that mast personality – to turn these players into star athletes for India and at the international level.

Will the future generations in the city, and around the country, follow the Singhs’s examples? “People are definitely very interested in helping the sport in the city, but nothing is happening yet,” Prashanti says, “Despite this being the Prime Minister’s constituency, sports here is ignored. We have to improve infrastructure and we need a good indoor court in this city. Basketball is a global, A-grade sport. We deserve more.”

Supreme Courts: UP College – How basketball became Varanasi’s most unlikely export

This article was first published in my column for Ekalavyas.com on July 29, 2016. Click here to read the original piece.

The purest way to experience Varanasi is to take a boat ride across the Ganga at the crack of dawn, to hear the ringing of temple bells from the ghats by your side, the splashing of morning devotees into the holy river, to smell the incense in the air, to sip on a cup of sweet chai off of the river’s banks, and to watch the entire history of mankind reflect off the water’s surface with the sun’s earliest rays.

Growing up in Varanasi, I was made aware soon enough that there was no city in the world like this. Varanasi, or Banaras, or Kashi, is one of the oldest-living cities in the world, a continuous civilization where the scenes described above would have been sensed uninterrupted from the times of the Upanishads to the age of Snapchat filters. It’s the city that Shiva adopted, where death is celebrated as a release and moksha into continuous permanence, like the city itself.

Because of this permanence, citizens – Banarasis – can be blamed for having a skewed concept of time. The past, present, and future blend together seamlessly, like the peaceful ebbs and flow of the Ganga river. The ringing of temple bells and splashes of oars into the water have been heard for thousands of years, and will continue to be the soundtrack to the city for a thousand more.

But over the last few decades, a new soundtrack has been remixed into the old voices of the eternal city. In the northwest of Varanasi, a few kilometres away from the banks of the Varuna river, the Raja of Bhinaga Udai Pratap Singh founded the Udai Pratap (UP) College over a hundred years ago. Little would the Raja have known back then that the UP College was going to birth an exciting new identity for the city and provide Varanasi with its most unlikely export: Basketball.

The first UP College basketball court was built in the 60s, and by the early 90s, a new court was built nearby in the sports field that has now achieved iconic status. Over the last few decades, this little, cemented outdoor court has provided dozens of superstars for city, state, and country. In 1993, Anup Minz broke through to become the first Varanasi superstar in international India jersey; including him, UP College has produced a total 22 international players for India, including Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Trideep Rai, Arjun Singh, and the popular Singh Sisters (Divya, Prashanti, Akanksha, Pratima).

While the city is better known for its saris, paan, educational institutions, temples, ghats, and lassis, UP College has done its share in ensuring that ‘basketball’ also enters the city’s eternal vernacular.

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Dr. Ashok Singh was a young student at UP College in the 60s when he first tried his hand at the game. Nearly fifty years later, he remains closely involved with basketball and the institution that raised him. Today, he’s the secretary of the district basketball association and a principal at UP College.

“I recall that the court first began in 1961 or 62 with Dr. Aryan Singh,” Ashok Singh says. “Back then, we didn’t know what basketball was and used to play it like kabaddi! But slowly, we learnt the game from other coaches and visiting teams and improved.” Singh eventually played at the Uttar Pradesh state level.

The older court in UP College used to host the Hukum Singh Memorial Tournament from 1974-80, which featured the top eight teams from Uttar Pradesh every year. UP College also hosted basketball at the National Student Games in 1978 and 1980.

But it was with the construction of the new – and currently standing court – that UP College’s place in the national basketball realm rocketed off. Singh mentioned that the turning points were the two ‘Family Gold Cups’ held in 1992 and 1996, a major national-level tournament that truly started the basketball craze among the locals.

A number of young kids from the neighbourhood watched this exciting new game and were motivated to join in, too. Those little kids – boys and girls – forced their way into the court with the elder players to dribble, shoot, and run, too. They were the scrubs back then, the ‘mini’ players who had to do odd jobs like sweep the court or deliver lal peda and chai to seniors.

A decade later, several of those kids became icons of Varanasi, and went on to dominate the present era of Indian Basketball.

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Varanasi Basketball’s fortunes reached their zenith when the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre at UP College brought in coach Amarjeet Singh in the early 2000s. During his time, the talent pool at the ground grew to be deeper than the Ganga. Divya, Prashanti, Akanksha, and Pratima Singh all went on to play for India’s national Women’s team. Divya and Prashanti served as captains while Divya is now a national coach. Trideep Rai, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, and Arjun Singh wore India colours for the Men’s squad, with Trideep and Vishesh serving as captains in the past.

“Every year, Varanasi wins at least six trophies in the various levels of Uttar Pradesh basketball championships,” says Vibhor Bhriguvanshi, a local icon, coach of the UP College team and with the district basketball association, and also Indian star Vishesh’s elder brother. “UP College is the best team in the state at the junior level, but the best senior players usually leave to work at ONGC, IOB, etc. or to college.”

Surendra Kumar Prasad, the current SAI coach at UP College, adds, “This court right here is the nursery of so many great players in the country. Players go from here to the Railways, the Army, nationwide. Now, almost every major team in the county has a player from Varanasi.” Prasad, original from Ranchi, has worked on and off at UP College from 2012.

Annually, UP College hosts a major district league in the fall, where some of the best teams in the city – UP College, Atulanand, DLW, Sunbeam School, Rajashri Club, and more – take part. In 2013, the court also hosted the Uttar Pradesh State Senior Championship. Somewhere between the city’s history, spirituality, and education, hordes of fans find their way around the court at every major event.

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It’s monsoon season in Varanasi this year when I revisit the UP College court. The rains have cleared up the skies but turned the city’s notoriously shoddy roads into a swamp. Rain is always threatening to disrupt basketball practice at the outdoor ground, but the players – to whom basketball is a daily ritual righter than rain – are not deterred.

Basketball practice is held from Monday to Saturday twice a day, from 5:30 to 9 AM in the mornings and from 3 to 8 PM at night. It’s a democratic, all-inclusive scene, as the ‘minis’ – the youngest players – hit the court first, in both the boys’ and girls’ divisions, followed by the junior boys and girls, followed by the seniors.

Currently, there are a total of 250 registered players at the ground, starting from six years old. While most players are from UP College itself, Vibhor Bhriguvanshi told me that there are some who bicycle as much as 18 kilometres every day to get to the court.

Whenever local legends are in town, they hit the court to assist the coaches in the practice session. When I visit, Arjun “Golu” Singh, who recently helped India win the South Asian Championship in Bengaluru, and Barkha Sonkar, a recruit and graduate of the IMG Basketball Academy, are on the court among many others to play, teach, and inspire.

Before basketball, however, I had to indulge in the local lal peda, sold fresh every day right by the side of the court for decades. “It’s the best in the world,” says Coach Surendra Prasad, and I joke that it is probably the secret behind the success of Varanasi basketball players.

But Prasad, of course, has a more logical reason. “Players have really struggled for their achievements here,” he says, “The competition is really high. You have ten players fighting for one spot on the team. When they see the legendary players from this court around, they see that hard work can land up a job with ONGC or a spot with the national team. All the young players want to be Vishesh, Golu, or Divya.”

One of these young players is 16-year-old Vivek Punia, who stands out not just because of his ability, but, at 6-foot-8, is also the tallest person on the court. Punia was recruited from Meerut earlier this year and is among the eighteen boys in the basketball division staying at the recently re-opened SAI hostel at UP College. Punia had the height when he first came to Varanasi, but was too weak and thin to be a force on the court. Over the last few months, under the tutelage of coaches like Bhriguvanshi, Prasad, and Karthick Ram, he has improved his game enough and could be a force in the upcoming junior and youth championships for the state.

I’m also introduced to a group of talented girls who have all recently played for Uttar Pradesh at the U16 Nationals, Shivani Gupta, Pratibha Singh, and Shruti Yadav. All three look up to the Singh Sisters and want to follow in their footsteps to success. Another male player, Lav Singh (16), has already played for the state at the Youth and Junior level and is considered one of the best future prospects from the city.

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But, even after such as illustrious past, there are concerns about the future of the court and basketball in Varanasi. Some coaches say that the motivation of many of the younger players isn’t what it used to be anymore.

“The competition level is the same as before,” says Prasad. “But the players don’t practice as much as they used to. Now, they are looking for work more than focusing on basketball.

Additionally, a parallel problem has arisen among those who are motivated, but are stunted because of a shortage of space and resources. Bhriguvanshi says that, with such a large number of players, one court alone isn’t enough to give them all time to play.

“We definitely need one more court here to accommodate the rising number of players,” says Bhriguvanshi. “SAI has opened a hostel for boys this year – now, we need a girls’ hostel, too.”

Another experienced voice from UP College is Arjun Singh, ‘Golu’, who has witnessed first-hand every stage from mini, to senior team stardom, to international success, and back to lending a helping hand to the coaches for the next generation of players.

“For a few years in the middle, basketball progress had stalled here,” Arjun says, “But now with Coaches Bhriguvanshi and Prasad, the young players are picking up the important fundamentals again. If the young prospects here stay on the right path, they can be future stars, too.”

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If a small town like this can become a basketball powerhouse, Varanasi can be an inspiration to hundreds of other similar cities in the country that could unearth their potential with a little more effort by coaches, some good fortune, and maybe some magical lal peda!

UP College has definitely contributed to basketball’s immense growth in Varanasi, but the work is not yet complete. The city has a lot more to offer, and both the SAI and the district need to ensure that players are provided with the coaching and facilities to keep the cycle of international basketball stars rolling uninterrupted.

The author Mark Twain once said that Varanasi is older than history and legend. The eternal city has provided the world with its unique personality and culture for almost as long as civilization has existed. Now, it has an opportunity to make basketball a part of it eternal culture, too.

Akanksha Singh: Small Wonder

11 years ago, the Varanasi District girls basketball team that was headed for the Under-17 School Nationals in Gorakhpur had a little problem. They only had 11 players on the squad, and needed a 12th from somewhere to complete the roster. They placed their faith on an unproven, small wonder, an 11-year-old who made enough of an impression to bolster her hoops career forever.

‘Bacchi’, the nickname-given to 22-year-old Indian national point guard Akanksha Singh, literally means ‘young girl’. With exceptional performances in over the past year for state, club, or country, Akanksha may have grown into a burgeoning young superstar, but she was only a actually just a little ‘bacchi’ when her life changed.

See, Akanksha comes from a heralded family of Women basketball stars from Varanasi , the ‘Singh Sisters’ – her three older sisters, Priyanka, Divya, and Prashanti had already made a name for themselves on the court. Divya and Prashanti, in particular, had scaled great heights – both had been stars of the Indian Sr. National Women’s team, and both of them had captained the National side at different points.

Growing up in a family of basketball achievers, Akanksha didn’t really have any other choice except to follow their path on to the famed UP College Basketball Court in Varanasi. “Before I started playing, I used to just go bicycling to the court and saw my older sisters playing,” said Akanksha, “The competition and the close games used to excite me a lot. When the next batch of sub-juniors began to play, I joined them, and that’s how I was first introduced to the game.”

But her big break came at the most unexpected of times: Sitting in her Grade VI classroom, the 11-year-old was called out of her class and told that the U17 Varanasi Girl’s team needs a 12th player. Since her older sister Prashanti was in the team, the little Akanksha – at 11, by far the youngest in the team – was taken along.

“That tournament changed my life,” she remembers, “I didn’t get to play too much really, but in a game against Lucknow, the coach surprised me by sending me on the court.”

The tiniest girl on the floor then proceeded to hit a couple of big shots, surprising herself. “I scored just five points,” she said, “But because I was so small everyone loved me for it, and I got excited too! That moment made me really confident that basketball was going to be my game.”

And then the ball got rolling faster: Akanksha practiced harder, and in the next few years, she moved up from Sub-Junior level to Youth level, until she received the next surprise, when she was taken with her older sisters Divya and Prashanti to the Junior (U18) team. Once again, she was an afterthought initially – small in age, experience, and size – but it didn’t stop her from getting her few moments of shine.

She quickly moved up the ranks, surprising herself with her own improvement and growing confident on court. And then the moment arrived that Akanksha remembers as one of the highlights of her young life. “I still remember the first time I was picked to play for India – it was the Indian U18 side,” said Akanksha, “It was the U18 Asian Basketball Championship (ABC) for Women in China. The first time I held my India jersey made me very sentimental!”

That wasn’t the only time that Akanksha felt her emotions nearly getting the best of her. Because guess what? Being in a family full of basketball stars isn’t always peaches and cream. Expectations for success are high, and patience for failure is far too low. With Divya and Prashanti making a name for themselves in the National and International circuit, there was a lot of pressure on Akanksha to follow in their footsteps, prove to the world that she can be in the same class that we have come to expect from the ‘Singh Sisters’. At 5 foot 6, she is also shorter than her older sisters, and like every shorter basketball player, she had to always go a step extra to prove that she belonged. Akanksha admits that, at first, it was a little too much to take. Luckily for her, she transformed that pressure into motivation, practicing further to live up to the billing.

“After my first Junior Nationals, I began to feel the pressure,” she says. “Divya and Prashanti had begun to make a name for themselves. I used to work extra hard because I felt that if I make any mistakes, it would hamper my chances of making the India team.”

But it was the older sisters who came to the aid of Akanksha, helping her regain her confidence. “They had a lot of encouraging things to say to me as I developed,” Akanksha remembers.

Another thing that helped her confidence was her fast-developing skill with the basketball. A common sight during basketball games is the bored look on the faces of some of the bench players, those who have little influence on the outcome of the game. But Akanksha made the most of her time as benchwarmer waiting for her number to be called.

“I used to just sit or stand around the bench while the game was going on with a basketball, and I never stopped dribbling,” she said, “I kept dribbling and dribbling until my handle became a lot better. The coaches used to notice this and then, they began to use me in the end of games, when the opposition played full-court defense on us. I was a good ball-handler in the pressure situations – and that’s how, although my older sisters played the forward positions, I became a point guard.”

The lesson here: even bench-warming can be a learning process!

In 2003, Akanksha Singh made her debut in the Senior Nationals and played for the Uttar Pradesh team when she was just an 11th Grader. “Many of the older girls didn’t take my seriously because I was small, but I always found a way to surprise them!”

In 2004, Akanksha followed her sister’s footsteps into the Delhi team. She had been playing with them a lot as a youngster, and this gave her another chance to play with them and develop a better understanding. As anyone who has ever played regular basketball with a sibling knows, there is a unique experience of understanding and expectations between the two: Siblings tend to understand each other’s movements mentally when the others on court may be a step or two behind, but siblings also judge each other’s mistakes harsher than everyone else on the team.

Akanksha’s experience of playing with her sisters has been no different – whether it has been in pick-up games in Varanasi, National tournament games for Delhi, or international games for India. “I can understand them better, I know their expressions, and get them the ball. I know exactly what they’re going to do.”

And just like her older sister’s mentored her, Akanksha took on the mentor’s role for the youngest, fifth Singh sister, Pratima. “The two of us love to play together,” she said of the 21-year-old, who is now also in the Delhi side, “But I like her to practice playing opposite me so she can get better!”

Suddenly, 2010 became the breakout year for Akanksha Singh, the ‘Small Wonder’. During the month of May, which is considered to be the off-season in Indian basketball, the Mastan League, a first ever professional-style club competition, was organised in Mumbai. “I wanted to play well so people know my name,” Akanksha said, “Even though it was the off-season I didn’t stop practicing. Once the tournament began, the game started to come very easily for me.”

Easy enough that Akanksha walked away with the award for the tournament’s MVP. But she wasn’t done announcing her coming-out party to the Indian basketball world. When India took part in the Asian Games basketball tournament in Guangzhou (China), Akanksha was just one of the smaller stars in the 12-women roster. It was American coach Tamika Raymond, brought to lead India into this competition, who injected another boost of confidence into the youngster, giving her the starting point guard role for the team.

“I wasn’t expecting to start, but Coach Raymond made me work hard to earn it. She began to play me a lot more during the practice sessions – every time there were mistakes with the offense, I was substituted in. I quickly learned that I was being sent in to fix those mistakes, and so I went ahead and did it.”

And suddenly, there was no doubt of her sublime ball-handling and scoring skills anymore – Akanksha responded well and saw her own game elevate to the highest level. She has been on a tear ever since her return from China, becoming a formidable force for Delhi and running the offense like a perfect point guard is supposed to.

And now, for the first time perhaps, Akanksha Singh may be finally established. She is small, but her skills surprise no one anymore. She is one of the 24-women heading for the Indian All Star game in Mumbai in a couple of weeks, and opponents can no longer afford to overlook her talents.

But the youngster is far from done climbing the ladder. She has bigger dreams, for herself and for her country. “I want to be part of a team that finally wins a medal for India. We may not look formidable right now but I don’t think such a feat is impossible. With the right kind of coaching, I think we can reach that summit.”

Coming from someone who has looked up at every summit and then confidently mastered it, experience has now taught us to know better than doubt the ‘Bacchi’s’ ambitions.

Vishesh Bhriguvanshi: Striving for success

In Varanasi, one of the oldest living cites in the world, they say that history of the world moves in a cyclical motion. Events repeat themselves one after the other every generation in the city, a cycle of good and evil and life and death, over and over and over for infinity in time. They say that even if the rest of the world stops, in Varanasi life will go on just as usual.

There is another kind of cyclical history being made at the famous UP College basketball court. Situated in the North-Western corner of the city, time and again, these courts have proven to be the nursery of some of Indian basketball’s finest talents. When taking a closer look, one can see how, every day, day after day, the basketballs continue bouncing without end, every morning and every evening, over and over again. With every year there is the development of a new batch of talented players and every generation gives birth to a select group of superstars.

On a chilly December evening at the UP College, all is as it has always been: the balls are bouncing, the shots are falling, the sneakers are pacing up and down the court. Except that today, there seems to be a distraction: a familiar face has shown itself again, and the court’s regular players, from the young toddlers with palms barely large enough to control a dribble to the experienced older ones with graying hair, have all stopped to welcome back their hometown hero.

Fresh out of captaining India to its first appearance at the Asian Games basketball tournament in 28 years, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi returned home to Varanasi for a few days of rest before the next challenge – the Super Kung Sheung Cup in Hong Kong. Still only 19, Vishesh already has several years of senior international appearance under his belt. He was called upon to captain the Indian side at the South Asian Games (SAG) in Dhaka at the beginning of this year, and the young shooting guard hasn’t looked back since.

Now back at the court where he learned how to master the game, Vishesh goes back to what he does best: showing up every morning and evening to meet his old friends, divide himself and the rest of the participating players into fair teams, and set the ball rolling. In a few years since his national and international exposure, he has earned an aura of awe and respect amongst the youngsters at the court. Refreshingly though, he is still the same old Vishesh with his peers: challenging, taunting, laughing, and competing. A small crowd gathers to watch as he lazily bounces around the court, sometimes wowing the spectators with great plays but mostly just blending in.

The Asian Games in Guangzhou (China), was a tough competition for the Indian squad. Led by coach Bill Harris, the first ever American hired to coach the Indian basketball team, the Young Cagers defeated Afghanistan in their first game of the tournament, a pre-qualifier that allowed them to enter the main group stage of the competition. India were not only able to exact revenge on an Afghani squad that had beaten them twice at the SAG (including a heart-breaking win at the tournament’s final), but the team also made history by celebrating Indian basketball’s first ever win at the Asian Games.

India then proceeded to lose all five of their group games, but they did put up some memorable performance in defeat. Against Asian powerhouses Iran, India managed to stay neck-to-neck in the second half after succumbing to a big deficit in first. Against Philippines and Japan, India performed well in the first halves to keep the games competitive before losing focus in certain stretches of the game to lose out.

A natural wing player, Vishesh (6 foot 4 inches) was forced to play the point guard or ‘feeder’ position at the game due to the team missing several key players. He gracefully took over the role to run the floor, sacrificing some of his scoring numbers to be able to lead the team better.

“The Asian Games were a great experience,” said Vishesh, “We showed great improvement as a team. Coach Harris was able to instill a defensive philosophy in the team which made us competitive. Throughout the tournament, I think we played some good defense and were better prepared with set plays for our offense, too.”

Comparing the current feel of the squad to the one that lost to Afghanistan at the SAG, Vishesh said that the players have begun to feel more like a cohesive unit. “Earlier on, it felt like everyone distrusted each other and just wanted to do their one thing,” he said, “This time, we were able to beat Afghanistan even without some great players because of good team unity.”

Vishesh admits that the Indian team had some glaring faults that were exposed at the Games. “It was hard for us to stay at the top level for the full game,” he said, “We would play well for one half and then not be able to keep up. I think our lack of experience showed. We just have to keep working.”

For the team to improve, Vishesh believes that they have to keep working harder, especially on the defensive end. Coach Harris has left all of the players he worked with in Chennai and in Guangzhou with specific exercise and training regiments to work on to improve their individual games. “If we keep working hard, I feel that we can improve a lot,” says Vishesh, “I hope that the next time we can get up to the top 8 in the Asian games and at least be able to put up a good challenge against one of the greater teams in Asia.”

The Indian team that has now headed to Hong Kong has a very different look. For starters, Coach Harris has gone back, and the squad has been playing without some great performers such as Jagdeep Singh, Trideep Singh, Hareesh Koroth, and Eudrick Pereria. They lost their first two games at the Super Kung Sheung Cup to hosts Hong Kong and the Southern California Fukienese Association (SCFA).

Before heading to Hong Kong, Vishesh acknowledged that the Indian national teams suffered from a lack of consistency – the teams keep changing and the players hardly get an opportunity to gel well together. Players get separated to go and represent their home states or service teams, sometimes become a higher priority for them than the Indian national team. Before leaving, Coach Bill Harris had proposed the idea that the national squads should be chosen yearly only to live, train, and play together as a team all year round to help build better chemistry and understanding.

“It is a good idea to keep the team together, but we obviously need a good coach to make it work,” Vishesh said, “All of us really liked Coach Harris – he was straight-forward and honest with us.”

He continues: “Too often, you see good players coming together from different parts of the country, and when they play for India, their performance becomes much worse. You can check the statistics and see this is happening – as Indian players, we need to be together and improve together.”

Clearly, Vishesh has embraced the role of captain much beyond just the ceremonial position. He seems to understand that in India’s success lies his own success, and he is ambitious about his future with basketball in India.

His next challenge: the Sr. National Basketball Championship, set to be held at New Delhi on December 28th. Vishesh has been an integral part of the strong Indian Railways squad that has won back to back championships, and he is ready for another win. “We want to make it a three-peat at the Nationals,” says Vishesh, “We will have to show a good performance if we are to have a chance to win. Teams like Tamil Nadu, Uttranchal, Service, and Punjab will definitely put up a tough challenge.”

Whether it’s his UP College home court in Varanasi, the grand courts in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, or the Talkatora Stadium in Delhi, where the Nationals will be held, Vishesh continues to do what he loves most: the game of basketball. And as long as he the youngster keeps improving, it seems the future of Indian basketball is in good hands, and his own name will be added to the history of Varanasi basketball idols who have been making the city proud, over and over again.

Addicted to the Game: Vishesh Bhriguvanshi

An edited version of this article was first published in the August 2010 edition of All Sports Magazine. Here is the full version.

Two years ago, I walked into Vishesh Bhriguvanshi’s room for the first time. The experience was surreal on at least four levels.

Surreal because this room belonged to a 17-year-old boy who just might be the biggest prospect in Indian basketball. Surreal because the little room, with its creaky sofa/bed and flaky wall paint and dozens of LeBron James and Allen Iverson posters was as much the family’s living room (read: guest hospitality/chai offering area) as it was this 17-year-old’s bedroom. Surreal because, despite his accomplishments, Vishesh was a relative nobody, destined to a life of relative-nobodiness.

And it’s surreal to me now because, two years later, despite his continued accomplishments in the basketball world, few outside the basketball world even know/care if this world exists.

But very soon, it might just be the right time to start caring: Somewhere deafened behind the loud noises of the World Cup vuvezelas and the news/updates/criticisms from the CommonWealth Games and MS Dhoni’s “secret” wedding was a bit of sport news sure to get every basketball fan in India jumping and dunking in delight. To change the face of sports in the India, American sports management powerhouse IMG aligned with Reliance, which stands amongst the richest corporations in the world. One of their first moves? The announcement to delve into a 30-year-long deal with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI). IMG-Reliance will assist to improve basketball facilities, provide training to young talent, and most importantly, help set up a professional basketball league in India, akin to the IPL or the National Basketball Association (NBA) from the US. It may take a few more years, but with fanfare sure to follow the growth of the sport in India, young talents in the country now have an opportunity to become the stars of the game in the future.

Vishesh, unsurprisingly, is looking forward to it.

Let’s go back two years again: Vishesh, which means unique or special, surely lived up to his name in the early days of 2008, when the NBA, surely the holy grail of all-that-is-great-and-importance-and-where-amazing-happens-etc of basketball, organised a Basketball Without Borders (BWB) – Asia camp in New Delhi. The camp featured over 40 of the most talented under-18s from dozens of countries around Asia and Oceania. Vishesh walked in as one of them, and he walked out after a few days as the Most Valuable Player of the camp’s ‘All Star Game’.

“I just kept working hard,” he had told me then, “Just kept playing and playing. 6-7 hours every day, I just love being on the court.”

It’s been more than two years since. I can still taste the chai and Marie biscuits that I was offered by his parents in that room and I can still remember those LeBron James posters.

LeBron was in a Cleveland Cavaliers #23 jersey then, but will be donning a Miami Heat #6 come next season. Vishesh has changed too, grown, yet somehow, remained the same. He went from being budding young star to national team captain in less than two years, leading the Indian national Men’s team, who are dubbed the ‘Young Cagers’ into the South Asian Games at Dhaka. But he is still the same in the manner with which he talks of his love for NBA basketball, hoping to copy their flashy plays, hoping to dunk on someone and ‘posterise’ them just like LeBron does. His game has changed, as he has evolved further and further into becoming an all-rounded player, and he has added to his CV back-to-back national championships with the Western Railways. But his work ethic is still the same, the same humble young man, the same kid who just wants to get on the court and satisfy his addiction for the game. Just keep playing basketball, all day.

Vishesh deflects every question I ask him about his extraordinary ability on the basketball court, and when I keep probing, he answers with a clichéd, “Just keep working hard” answer. He has said it so often in the past few years that I’m starting to believe the cliché. And he isn’t alone: everyone from the BFI secretary Harish Sharma to renowned American coaches who worked with the national team have had the same, clichéd-but-true words for the youngster: “hunger to learn”, “always wanting to get better”, “always working harder”.

Why do you work so hard? I ask him the most obvious, why-not? question of the day. “Basketball is my life,” he answers, “I still practice all the time, whenever I get time… 6-7 hours a day. The game has given me so much: a job, popularity, and gotten me all the way to the national team. I just respect the game, so I keep on practicing.”

Much further beyond the picturesque ghat and Ganga scenes in the Coffee Table books and the ringing of a thousand temple bells lies the real Varanasi – the Varanasi of nerdy university students, shady office buildings, lazy rickshaw-wallahs, broken roads, and awful traffic.

Probe even further into the holy city and you will find a city that passionately bleeds basketball. Over the past few decades, Varanasi has regularly churned out legends of the game on the national and the international level. The Indian Women’s team has been blessed by the talents of the four ‘Singh Sisters of Varanasi’ – Divya, Prashanti, Akanksha, and Pratima – who have been dominating the game for the better part of this past decade. Many national level players from the city have learnt their trade at the basketball courts of the Udai Pratap (UP) College, which has gained a reputation for becoming a factory for producing Indian hoop stars.

Vishesh is from those same courts. His father was a Biology teacher at the UP College, and when he was around 11, Vishesh started to discover the game for himself. As he grew up, his biggest role model was another Varanasi boy, Trideep Rai, whose incredible talent had made him into a regular fixture in the Indian starting squads and propelled him to captaining the side in several crucial tournaments. “Trideep Bhaiya,” Vishesh says affectionately, “He was the one that brought the game closer to me and so many others. He had a lot of experience and helped us practice hard, helped us play the right way.”

And soon came the national camp invitations, the championships, the selection. Sub-Junior. Junior. And after the BWB experience, Senior. Vishesh was the youngest player in the Young Cagers side that went to play in Kuwait in 2008, his first national team experience. “I didn’t get to play much,” he remembers, “But it was still a chance to have fun with the team, learn and improve my game.”

Like most other young sportsmen in India, one of the Vishesh’s first major hurdles started from home. “When I was younger and playing and improving, my family told me to focus on studies, ‘Basketball should be a hobby’, they said, But when I made it into the Indian team, and when I got a job with the government even before I turned 17, they started to believe that I had a future here and they encouraged me.”

It has already been a wild ride for the youngster who, unbelievably, is still in his last days as a teenager. He has won two National Championships with Western Railways. “We were an extraordinary team this year,” he speaks of his Railways squad, “It was a team of young players who were struggling before, but were able to improve slowly and find form at the right time.”

And the clichés continued – talking about team before self, refusing to highlight his own strengths.

He had done the same thing two years ago, so the only way for me to discover his skill-set was to watch him play. After the tea and biscuits, Vishesh and I headed out to the UP College court, where I decided to test his competitive spirit (and of course, my own) when I challenged him to a game. One on one, first to five points, uber-competitive journalist versus the country’s most talented youngster. Vishesh laughed, but when I insisted, he agreed.

I scored the first two points, leaving only a bemused smile on Vishesh’s face and an unblinking focus on mine. And suddenly, the pace of the game changed. Vishesh switched on his incredibly swift first step, beating me ragged for four straight points in a matter of seconds. Lay-ups, jump shots, rebounding and tipping in his own misses.

“He has a world of talent and is an unbelievably gifted player,” said Harish Sharma, the BFI secretary, “He has a great quality to control the ball, quick execution, and then finishing well around the basket.”

I could’ve done with this scouting report before, because Vishesh did all of the above, and more. I did manage one more jump-shot, but the game was over as quickly as it began. Another move from the top of the key, near the three-point line – fake shot, cross-over dribble, a blur passed by my left, three large strides to the basket, lay-up, game over.

“If he keeps focused off the court, and stays disciplined on it, he has a lot of potential,” Sharma had added, “He has the potential to make to the lower leagues in the USA, maybe even the NBA’s Development League (NBDL).”

Sharma believes that he has the god-given talents and the perfect physical ability to dominate the game. Vishesh is still nit-picky, pointing out how his jump-shot can be improved, and how he can hustle harder, how he can be better.

He will need to be, too. A basketball league in India is not far away, and Vishesh, along with thousands of other basketball players and fans are anxiously awaiting its development. “This is amazing news,” says Vishesh, “And if not the current crop of stars, then at least the future basketball players will be able to have a league of their own. We’ll be able to have top-level matches and involve players from different countries, which in turn will improve our own game.”

“A league like this will help in selling basketball to youngsters as media interest and broadcast coverage increases as well.”

Vishesh is still young, and if the dream of such is league is implemented as planned, he is on his way to becoming one of its stars. There are many others like him in the country, other young basketball players hungry to make their hobby into work, hungry to keep playing this addictive sport. They come from all over the country, from Varanasi to Bhopal to Indore to Chennai and Bangalore and Pune and New Delhi, Ludhiana, Kapurthala, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad, and Mumbai. They have made something out of a sport that has been nothing in this country, and are on their way to having their skills noticed by a national audience.

And yet, what remains surreal is how Vishesh, like many of these other young boys and girls, loves to remain home. He loves his little living room and the LeBron posters and the labyrinthic Banarasi gullies and the UP college court.

“I am never more comfortable than when I’m playing basketball back in Varanasi, back with my friends and my family,” he says, and when I ask him the secret behind the town’s basketball pedigree, he answers: “There’s no secret! It’s just a good atmosphere to practice and play. We don’t do anything else but work hard, because it’s fun.”

Welcome to Vishesh’s world, a world soon to be exploding with a lot more fun and a lot more noise. Welcome to the surreal world of Indian basketball.

Trideep Rai: A discourse in disillusion

For a former captain of the Indian Basketball Team with nearly a decade of international experience, Trideep Rai (26) comes of as humble and brashly honest. But perhaps the humbleness shouldn’t surprise me – Indian basketball ‘stars’ have always seemed down to earth, since most of these stars get their shine dimmed early and often in their professional careers. They have no choice but to be ‘down to earth’, because a career in basketball in India has never given them an opportunity to aim too much higher.

But it is his honesty that does surprise – disillusioned by what they believe to be incomprehensible decision-making by the higher authorities, most pro players silently accept the system for the fear of banishment from the national camps. On a self-imposed exile from the Young Cagers, Trideep spoke to me about his career, the pros and cons of the Indian professional system, and the potentially troubled future of the national team.



I have a personal connection with him, too – Trideep happens to be one of the many great players to have grown out of my hometown, Varanasi. He first played the game at the UP College in the city, and my older brother has played pick-up games with him on several occasions.

Trideep started playing basketball at age 13 at the UP College basketball court, but only at age 17 when he was called up for India’s Under-19 camp did he begin to consider the sport as a possible career option. At age 19, he began to play for the Western Railways, where he was for three years. He then moved on to play for the Indian Overseas Bank for a years, and for the past three years, he has been a part of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

He has been involved with the Young Cagers from 2000 onwards, last playing in a tournament in Indonesia earlier this year. The highlights of his national career have included captaining the team during the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and in the same year, winning the distinction of Most Valuable Player and leading scorer in the Prince Crown Invitational Cup in Thailand, where India finished a respectable third place.

He is a high-scoring ‘forward’ (or more specifically, shooting guard, for the NBA-oriented reader). He is a good long-distance shooter and is known to regularly attack the lane.

On his career… “I consider myself to be luckier than most other players,” Trideep says, “In all of my postings (Railways, Indian Overseas Bank, ONGC) I’ve never had to do any actual work – I was recruited as a basketball player and was only expected to play basketball.”

“There are many other players I know – legends of the game in India whom I look up to – who have had to toil through years of a schedule of basketball practice in the morning, working at a railway platform in the afternoon, and then practice again in the evening.”

The system, Trideep admits, has its pros and cons: Indian “professionals” are actually only semi-pro players who are given a post in a government service. The post, as in Trideep’s case, can often be nothing more than a formality – at the Indian Overseas Bank, where he was a probationary officer, Trideep says that he only had to check in his name every morning and his job was done. At the ONGC he has been ceremoniously named an ‘Assistant HR Executive’; he admits that he isn’t expected to actually report to work, and instead, only focus on basketball practice and games come tournament time.

The lack of a league system definitely hinders the players’ exposure and being tied up by other jobs means that they can’t fully dedicate their lives to the game like professionals in other countries. “But it has its advantages,” says Trideep, “A league system in Indian basketball will never be very rich, and even the best players will only earn a contract of around 1-2 lakh (100,000-200,000) rupees per year. With a government job we have a guaranteed salary and job post-basketball – if I get injured or decide to retire from the game, I can at least be sure that there will be something for me to fall back on.”

“It’s the same reason why most players don’t accept offers to go into leagues in other countries,” he says, “The potential for growth and exposure is exciting, but we don’t want to give up the job security we have here.”



It is a very different system to that from the United States, and had indubitably affected the state of international level talent produced in India today – but I’ll leave that debate for a future story.

On improving the standard of basketball in India… Trideep’s suggests that first and foremost, it is the infrastructure in India that needs an overhaul. “We play on outdoor courts and with rubber balls most of the time, and are expected to get used to indoor wooden courts and leather balls in a short period before any international tournament,” he says, “Every city in India needs at least a good indoor court.”

He speaks about the tension between the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) and its players, too. “The players blame the federation, and the federation blames the players, but the fault needs to be shared: the players don’t work as hard as they should at the most competitive level, and the federation doesn’t provide us with the right facilities.”

“There needs to be more transparency in the system,” he adds, “The federation often makes perplexing personnel decisions which leave a lot of its players angry and dissatisfied.”

Trideep speaks of several talented basketball players who’ve quit a career in the game or have been seriously hindered by the federation or the service that employs them. There is widespread depression amongst many professionals who just don’t believe that they’ll have the support that they will need, even as pro athletes.

Another major push is needed in the early development of youngsters. “We don’t usually learn the basics here in India till we’re a bit older,” feels Trideep, and this feeds into a later comment he makes on “pro players getting disillusioned and disinterested in the game after a certain level.” Basketball, even for those who are in love with the game, remains just that – a game. If a love and the basics for the game are instilled at an earlier age, the older players would go out and enjoy it without losing their focus, no matter the level or the competition.

And picking up from that point, Trideep adds that there is definitely need for more incentive for the players to continue playing. “After a certain point, when players make it to the highest service/semi-pro level (which many believe to be at the ONGC), players run out of further ambition. They need to think higher…”

On Transparency… “The international team’s successes need to be advertised more, but it isn’t done so because then our failures, which are much more frequent, would be advertised, too. This is okay – as long as we can build an interest amongst the media.”

On Physical Competency… “It is true that the physical level of Indian players isn’t naturally at par with those in America or Europe, but this is no excuse. Countries like Kazakhstan, who we used to thrash, have brought in the right facilities to improve physically, and now they are able to beat us. We have all the right skills but are just missing out on the physical standard.”

“We need to prepare a lot to get to the level of other Asian teams,” he adds, “We have no physical trainer, no dietician – it is no surprise that we keep lagging behind!”

On the future… “The future isn’t looking too good,” he says frankly, “Our position has fallen down amongst Asian nations over the last few years. I must commend the Federation for trying to give us more exposure, but the team performance hasn’t improved and morale is low.”

Trideep has voluntarily pulled out of the team in recent competitions, and low on confidence, he ponders if he will return to the squad in time for the Commonwealth Games next year, which will be held in New Delhi. There are many others like him, disenchanted by the sport and disinterested in ambition after the never-ending whispers of corruption, short-cuts, and unfair advantages in the entire system.

At 26, he may not even have hit his prime yet, and is already been slowed down and dogged by the same things he warns others to beware of.

Low on confidence and ambition, his story is a cautionary tale for youngsters hoping to make it into the game here: it is very possible to lose faith in the system, but the love for basketball should rise above the external crises.