Mumbai has a long and proud history of basketball, featuring great little hubs of competition around the metropolis. One of those famous basketball neighbourhoods - Matunga - received a happy boost earlier this week with a little help from some foreign friends. Led by an effort by Air Canada to shed light on their Indo-Canadian partnership, Matunga's Hoopers Ground basketball court was revamped and inaugurated over the past weekend. Air Canada partnered with award-winning content creators Beautiful Destinations to complete the court's new look and featured Indian basketball players, musicians, and artists to highlight the court's inauguration ceremony.
The court revamp was the latest iteration of Air Canada's "Fly the Flag" initiative to highlight "how people all over the world are making an impact in local communities, while displaying the values of diversity, equality, and inclusivity". Renowned Indian artist Sajid Wahid, through ST+ART India Foundation, used colour and design that were reminiscent of Canada and India. Indian basketball players including Varanasi's famous Singh Sisters (Divya, Prashanti and Akanksha) and Indian-Canadian musician Raghav Mathur were present at the unveiling of the court.
The objective was to showcase Mumbai’s beauty, diversity, and vibrant culture. The initiative began as an attempt to create an enduring positive space in the community for people to come together — a space that would leave an artistic legacy that can be viewed from the sky.
Speaking at the event, Arun Pandeya, general manager of Air Canada – India & South Asia said, "At Air Canada, we believe that by doing good and by participating fully in the communities we serve, our airline truly thrives. We’re committed to giving back through a range of initiatives each year that help advance diversity, equality and inclusivity around the world. Air Canada is grateful for the opportunity to add value in meaningful ways to the neighborhoods and communities in this wonderful nation. We thank our partners for making today’s event such a success, and the youth for taking part in the inaugural game on the new court."
The photographs from this court look beautiful and help to add more character to a city teeming with basketball potential. Hopefully, the aesthetic is just the first step to attract young players to come to the court - but it will be the love of the game that will hopefully make them stay.
On a sidenote to this story was the unfortunate arrest of a Scottish national - Tom Jauncey, the co-founder of Beautiful Destinations - who had come to Mumbai to videograph the court revamp and was arrested for flying a drone near the Mumbai airport without permission.
Last year, the NBA launched its first-ever elite basketball Academy in India - at the Jaypee Greens Integrated Sports Complex in Greater Noida - with the mission to train and educate the top young prospects from the country. The first year of the Academy housed a few dozen players in the facility, who received world-class coaching and took part in several major basketball tournaments. But all these players were young boys, while their female counterparts still waited for their opportunity.
This week, the Academy took a major step forward with a programme for some of the best young female prospects in India. The first-ever NBA Academy Women’s camp was held at the facility in Greater Noida from May 27-29, featuring international women's basketball legends, coaches, and Indian basketball stars in attendance. The camp concluded on Tuesday, May 29 with a championship game between 'Team Liberty' and 'Team Sparks', won by Liberty 18-8.
After the game, Sanjana Ramesh of Bengaluru and Vaishnavi Yadav from Allahabad were named the camp's Co-MVPs. Other award-winners included Siya Deodhar (Most Improved Player), Grishma Niranjan (Sharp Shooter), Rajvi Desai (Defensive Player), Pushpa Senthil Award (Sportsmanship and Leadership Skills) and Khushi Dongre (Best Teammate).
For the past three days, the 18 top female prospects from across India received training from 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame member Jennifer Azzi, 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist and two-time WNBA Champion Ruth Riley, former WNBA player Ebony Hoffman and former college coach Blair Hardiek, along with former Indian women’s basketball team captain Divya Singh.
"These three days have been the best of my life," said Ramesh. "Honestly, every player here is an MVP. We all have improved and I am really grateful to win this award. The camp has taught us so much about team spirit and unity and that’s something that I am going to take back from here."
"It’s a dream come true to win this award, especially in a camp organised by the NBA," said Yadav. "The three days here have taught me so much more than I have learnt in past. I am pretty sure I will only improve as a player from here on."
Starting on Wednesday, the Academy will host the 2018 Basketball Without Borders Asia camp for 66 participants from 16 countries across Asia. A number of former NBA/WNBA players, international coaches, and Indian basketball stars will assist with this event. The 18 prospects from the Women's camp are also set to remain at the Academy to take part in BWB 2018.
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.”
After several years preparing in the background for the big moment, the Basketball India Players Association (BIPA) formally launched on Saturday, July 29, at the Constitutional Club in New Delhi, in the presence of Olympians, former captains and distinguished awardees of the game. Registered as a non-profit company, The BIPA will be an organisation hoping to promote the game without being in “confrontation or competition” with any federation or association - which means, of course, the Basketball Federation of India (BFI).
Straightaway, BIPA announced the launch of a massive 16-city, 1,024-team inter-school basketball league, which will begin next month all across the country.
The attendees at the launch event included chief guest Yogeshwar Dutt (India's 2012 Olympic Medalist Wrestler), Gyan Sherawat Singh (1984 Olympian), Ajmer Singh, Hanuman Singh (both Arjuna Awardees and 1980 Basketball Olympians), Zorawar Singh, TS Sandhu (1980 Basketball Olympian), Gajendra Singh (Member of Parliament and BIPA President) Ram Kumar (Dhyanchand Awardee, Former Captain of Indian Men's Basketball Team, Secretary General of BIPA), Divya Singh (Former Captain of Indian Women's Basketball Team and Treasurer of BIPA) and many more.
The BIPA have several objectives for current and former players, listed on his blog by Aruneshwar Gupta, including lifelong security, medical coverage, pension benefits, marketing, help with contractual rights, and mentoring of players and their families. According to Gupta, BIPA is the one of the largest players association in the country and possibly in the world with about 2,800 members who are basketball players, coaches, referees, ground officials, physiotherapists, dietitians, and other stakeholders. The membership is likely to increase to 20,000 by the end of the year.
Dutt, the chief guest at the launch, said at the event, "In any game, the voice of the players, has to be heard. It is great that all the great players have got together."
The Inter-school tournament will feature events for boys and girls in the under-14 and under-17 sections, in Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Delhi, Dehradun, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Noida, Pune, Raipur and Thiruvananthapuram. It will be played from August 23 to September 6. There will also be clinics by the leading players of the game to inspire school kids and strengthen their bond with the game. On the occasion, Olympians Ajmer Singh, Hanuman Singh, Paramjit Singh, Zoravar Singh, Baldev Singh, T.S. Sandhu and Gyan Singh were honoured, along with a host of other players like Ram Kumar, Trideep Rai, Divya Singh, Prashanti Singh, Akanksha Singh, Pratima Singh etc.
There are rarely any stories in sports more remarkable than that of the famous Singh Sisters of Varanasi. Four sisters - Divya, Prashanti, Akanksha, and Pratima - overcame great odds to all become important members of India's national basketball team and dominate the game at the domestic level. Through coaching and playing, the four sisters are still intimately involved with the growth of the game in India and continue to be some of the most popular figures in Indian basketball.
Now, the four sisters can add another feather to their well-stacked hats. On Monday, December 19, Divya (34), Prashanti (32), Akanksha (27), and Pratima (26) were all invited by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav to receive the prestigious Rani Lakshmi Bai Award, meant to signify bravery and outstanding achievement of women.
"This is good news for Varanasi as well as Indian basketball," said Prashanti Singh. "This award was only thing left for the Singh Sisters as we have already played so many big games together for India - CommonWealth Games, Asian Games, FIBA Asia Championship, National Championship, and more. Now being honoured with this award is a dream come true. This is historic for UP state and India, too."
The four sisters are part of an incredible basketball and sports extended family of India. Their eldest sister, Priyanka, also played at the state level. Their brother Vikrant Solanki is an U19 Delhi State footballer. Pratima Singh, the youngest of the sisters, got married earlier this year to Indian national cricketer Ishant Sharma.
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.
*
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.
*
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.
*
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.
*
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.”
*
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.
It’s 1998, and there are only two types of basketball fans in India. Those who know everything about Michael Jordan. And those who know everything about Shah Rukh Khan.
It’s 1998. Michael Jordan, the greatest player of his time – and as history would remember it, the greatest player of all time – had just hit his ‘final’ shot to win a dramatic NBA title over the Utah Jazz in the summer (Two years later, he would return to pro basketball in a Wizards uniform). It would be title number six for MJ, and for basketball fans in India, the image of Jordan hitting the game-winning shot would leave an indelible imprint forever.
It’s 1998. Shah Rukh Khan, the biggest Bollywood star of his time – and as history would remember it, the biggest Bollywood star of all time – would star in the super-hit film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the first introduction of basketball to a mainstream Indian audience. To Bollywood fans in India, the image of SRK awkwardly dribbling against his eternal screen love-interest Kajol would leave an indelible imprint forever.
*
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai didn’t take place in India. Sure, we’re told that the two major settings of the film – the High School and the summer camp – are Indian, but nothing about them, except the language and the occasional sari, was truly desi. Instead, the film finds itself in a parallel perfect world created by first-time director Karan Johar, a world where East and West collided, where Rani Mukerji knew her shlokas as well as she knew her rock-n-roll. Where High School looked like a scene from the Archie Comics. Where there was no serious crime or poverty or politics. Where the most pressing issues to humanity were love triangles.
Where basketball – not cricket – was India’s favourite sport.
There is an adage among hoop analysts that the ‘NBA is a copycat league’, that a winning system shapes the next generation of teams around the league. This is why big men were all the rage for the Celtics, Rockets, and Pistons in the 80s, the hunt for athletic shooting guards began following Jordan’s dominance in the 90s, and small-ball became the blueprint for teams when the Golden State Warriors perfected the model.
Success breeds imitation, and the adage is no different in Bollywood. So, as he was coming off of a role as Aditya Chopra’s assistant director in the 1995 Bollywood classic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, 26-year-old Johar decided to adopt the formula of DDLG into his directorial debut. Also featuring the Shah Rukh and Kajol combo, DDLG became one of India’s most successful and its longest-running film. During the montage of the hit song ‘Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye’, Khan gave a brief glimpse of his on-screen basketball “skills”, as he awkwardly dribbles and dunks in the rain.
How to make the perfect Indian romantic comedy? A pairing of India’s hottest on-screen couple, Khan and Kajol? Check. Exotic foreign locations and expensive international brands? Check. An unstoppable soundtrack with cross-generational hits? Check. Love triangles? We got two of them. The ‘coolness’ of the West in a clash with Indian sanskriti? All day. More basketball? Hell yes!
The roles of the main cast of characters in KKHH seemed well-defined. A traditionally ‘hot’ girl, a ‘tomboy’ girl, and the loveable guy in the middle. Kajol, the typecast ‘tomboy’, was dressed in the early posters of the film cradling a basketball with her hat on backwards. Here – Johar seemed to be saying – is a girl who does ‘cool’ the way those in the West seem to do it.
Johar put together this recipe and created and perfect Indian blockbuster for its time. Upon its release, KKHH was the most successful Indian film of 1998 and one of the highest- Bollywood films ever. It ran in Indian cinemas for 52 consecutive weeks. Overseas, it grossed more than any other Indian film had ever had until that point. It dominated the Indian Filmfare Awards in Jordanesque fashion, winning Best Film, Best Director (Johar) Best Actor (Khan), Best Actress (Kajol), Best Supporting Actor (Salman Khan, in an important cameo), and Best Supporting Actress (Mukerji).
KKHH caught Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in the primes of their careers as they went on to remarkable fame in the Hindi film industry. Khan, in particular, developed to become the most bankable and popular Bollywood actor worldwide. After directing the hit debut, Johar made some of the most popular and lucrative films in contemporary Bollywood history, including Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Kahbi Alvida Naa Kehna, and My Name is Khan.
The legacy of KKHH is cemented forever for Indian audiences. But beyond the romance, the comedy, the hit songs, and the fashion trends it set, KKHH also brought basketball into the mainstream Indian consciousness. The basketball scenes from the movie introduced novices to the sport, while fans and players felt validated that their niche sport had briefly become a national sensation.
*
KKHH’s used basketball as a major plot device, unlike any Bollywood film before. Anjali (Kajol) and Rahul (Khan) are best friends who bond over basketball. Johar’s hoop-romance even pre-dated the 2000 Hollywood film Love and Basketball. However, while Kajol and Khan covered the flirtatious ‘love’ part well, there wasn’t much attention paid to the duo actually learning any real ‘basketball’ skills.
Never mind that. Early in the movie, we see Anjali and Rahul play in a full-court one-on-one game in a closed gym at their school (Khan was in his early 30s while playing a High Schooler, because Bollywood said so) that soon becomes extremely testy. Rahul, who always gets dominated by his platonic friend Anjali, resorts to cheat and foul to gain advantage. Anjali clearly wins this matchup and holds both a physical and a mental advantage over Rahul. Khan’s super-high, slow, one-handed dribble would go on to haunt Allen Iverson forever.
The scene also establishes questions over gender roles, which develop as a parallel story-line through the course of the film. Anjali is accused of crying like a girl, and then complains that she doesn’t want to be called a girl anymore. She is the third wheel in the romance between Rahul and Tina (Mukerji), but later in the film, when she makes her transformation to a more traditionally ‘feminine’ woman, Rahul is both attracted to her new avatar while simultaneously missing his tomboy, basketball-loving old friend.
Divya Singh, former captain of India’s women’s team and now a junior international coach, recalls how the basketball scenes and, specifically, Anjali’s character, reminded her own youth, when she was that rebellious athlete in Varanasi’s conservative society fighting to play a ‘boy’s game’.
“I remember it clearly,” Singh told me. “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was the third movie I had ever seen. I was a junior player for Uttar Pradesh back then and all the senior players used to say that me and Trideep Rai (Varanasi-bred former India Men’s basketball captain) used to play and fight like Anjali and Rahul! Some of those fights even got really serious, and people in Varanasi used to joke that it was our story!”
“I truly loved that movie when it came out!” she added. “I could really relate to it, because I was a tomboy like Anjali. But I also used to laugh at the way Shah Rukh and Kajol played – they should’ve at least learnt how to play basketball for the movie!”
*
But it’s a scene in the second half of the movie that eventually went down in Bollywood Basketball lore. Rahul and Anjali are now ‘grown up’ and estranged. Tina, Rahul’s wife, is dead, but not before passing on a message to her daughter – also named Anjali – to help reunite Rahul with his old friend. The film shifts to the summer camp (‘Camp Sunshine’) setting, where the daughter is finally able to facilitate this reunion (I’m grossly over-simplifying here. Go watch the movie).
Except now, things are different. Anjali isn’t the tomboy anymore: she has exchanged her athletic gear for a ‘feminine’ sari and seems to have given up on her basketball past. Anjali is also now engaged to Aman (Salman Khan). The old friends find it hard to connect again. It’s awkward.
Basketball to the rescue! The daughter is aware of the friendly basketball rivalry between Rahul and Anjali from their past and, through some trickery and reintroduction of gender stereotypes (“girls can’t play basketball?”) she’s able to get Rahul and Anjali to shed their formalities and reprise their long-standing basketball rivalry at an outdoor court.
The one-on-one, full-court game, appropriately titled on YouTube as the ‘Basketball Affair’, is iconic, influential, and hilarious. Rahul keeps on his formal shirt and tie. Anjali plays barefoot in her sari (here are a couple of people taking David Stern’s Dress Code to much greater heights), which, in 2016 would’ve definitely been sponsored by Under Armor. After some flirtatious trash-talk, the game begins.
There is obviously no referee in this game, and Rahul is allowed to commit multiple violations in each possession. Anjali, at the 3:20 mark in the video, steals the ball, but must fix her sari before taking a jump-shot (#IndiaBasketball). Of course, no ‘sexy sari’ moment is complete without potentially-scandalous waist touching, and Rahul obliges, heightening the sexual and competitive tension between the two. Even though it’s a full-court game, both seem to be shooting at the same basket. Frustrated by Rahul’s sneaky improvements (and continued use of gamesmanship tactics to get unfair advantage), Anjali brings him down with a foul that would’ve made Bill Laimbeer proud. The two begin to argue the same way they used to as High Schoolers. Anjali gets flustered. The kids begin to chant that “girls can’t play basketball” (WTF?). Everyone laughs at Anjali.
There have been several great moments in basketball and Bollywood, and I wrote about them in greater detail for my blog six years ago. KKHH wasn’t the first Bollywood movie to incorporate basketball, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“The basketball quotient in KKHH was a novelty at the time,” recalled Jamie Alter, Sports Editor of Times of India Digital and one of India’s premier 90s Bollywood experts. “It has not been paralleled since, with the buffoonery shown in Koi Mil Gaya and Dhoom 2’s (lame) attempt to make basketball in the rain sexy.”
“In 1998, basketball to the mainstream Indian audience was probably limited to Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls versus Utah Jazz and some very rare ONGC v Punjab games on Doordarshan,” he added. “So KKHH went a fair way in putting basketball into at least one segment of the public’s conscience, even if it was hardly authentic. There hasn’t been anything like that replicated with such dedication - though even now, thinking of Shah Rukh and Kajol bobbling along with a basketball makes me chuckle - and no heroine has tucked in the fall of her sari so emphatically as Kajol did during the summer camp face-off.”
In 2003, Hrithik Roshan would star in Koi Mil Gaya, which borrowed inspirations from ET, Forrest Gump, and Space Jam in its basketball sequence. Roshan and his team - the ‘Paandavs’ – receive special powers from an alien called ‘Jadoo’ to dominate their rivals. Please pay special attention to the 7:58 – 8:09 mark in the video, where Roshan completes pretty much the greatest move ever: he intercepts a shot, jumps, does three body flips in mid-air to land his feet on top of the oppositions rim, and then drop the game winner. Incredible.
Three years later, Roshan would be showing off his questionable basketball skills again, this time as super criminal Aryan in the film Dhoom 2. Roshan plays a one-on-one game in the rain with Aishwarya Rai, which also doubles as a metaphor for the international heist lifestyle. It’s in this scene that he drops the immortal line – which currently serves as the opener to my Hoopdarshan podcast: “Yeh international game hai Sunehri. Deemag se khela jata hai, gussey se nahi” (This is an international game, Sunehri. You have to play with your mind, not your anger).
But KKHH, indisputably, had the biggest impact. Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, captain of India’s men’s basketball team, recalled how many of his small town and village acquaintances were introduced to the game of basketball itself because ofthe film alone.
“This was the first time that basketball was shown in a big Indian movie,” Bhriguvanshi told me “It became a ‘cool’ thing because basketball was looked at as a fancy game, and we felt even better because there were two big stars playing our favourite sport. I had many school friends who didn’t know what I did for a living until I said that I play ‘basketball, just like that movie!’”
Divya Singh agrees about the film’s impact, too. “A lot of youngsters started playing basketball after that movie. And they started dressing like Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, too. It became a style statement.”
*
It may still be a smaller sport relative to cricket, but basketball is a lot more popular in India than it was 16 years ago. India continues to steadily improve at the international level and even pulled off a historic win over China in 2014. The NBA has made major inroads in India, opened up an office in Mumbai, and has set up grassroots programmes the country. An Indian – Satnam Singh – has even been drafted into the NBA. Suffice to say, the Indian mainstream recognizes basketball as more than that vaguely ‘western’ way of Rahul and Anjali to flirt in KKHH.
Yet, the film’s continuing legacy on Bollywood and basketball is undeniable. Amar Acharya, an Indian-American and a well-known NBA blogger and masthead for SLC Dunk, told me continued familiarity with Bollywood helped him share something with other NRIs (non-resident Indians) of his age, and with desis around the world. But the basketball angle in KKHH took it even further.
“Basketball in KKHH codified in my mind the possibility of basketball being a medium infrastructure sport for the middle and upward economic classes of my motherland,” Acharya said, “In a place of cricket, Kabaddi, and field hockey, there was something that could be a step up – a sport for the developing classes who themselves were stepping up in line with greater educational opportunities, and a better life than their parents before them.”
Alter believes that KKHH remains Karan Johar’s defining movie and the one that helped define, much like its predecessor DDLJ, the landscape of modern Hindi film romances. “So did basketball play a role in shaping the images of two of Bollywood’s biggest stars, and undoubtedly the modern era’s most famous on-screen couple? Absolutely.”
Rahul, in his forlorn depression, does what all hoop fans do at moments of stress: he hits the court. Aman sees him practicing, and is terribly impressed by Rahul’s awkward basket followed by uncoordinated bounce ups of the ball. In a weird American accent (Aman is an NRI living in London and that was Salman Khan's “research”) he says, "Wow wow wow, amazing man, too good, just like Michael Jordan, my man, you're too good."
And with that, he brings the basketball premise of KKHH full circle, perfectly marrying Bollywood's 'Badshah' Shah Rukh with the baddest badshah to ever hit the basketball court: Michael Jordan. Everyone, including India’s most famous actor in one of the biggest films of All Time, wanted to be Like Mike.
Fast forward. Tears are shed. One wedding is replaced by another. Cue song.
*
1998 was the summer that Jordan retired, and everyone – from Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson to LeBron James and Kevin Durant – tried to fill the void. In their own way, Johar, Khan, Kajol, and everyone associated with KKHH tried to fill a void, too. Where Jordan’s Bulls dynasty ended, the Johar and Khan dynasty began, starting with KKHH and continuing through to a whole host of similarly-themed romantic comedies.
Soon enough, directors influenced or opposed to Johar’s formula found success in Bollywood. By 2016, Michael Jordan and Shah Rukh Khan became crying memes and kids wanted to grow up to be Steph Curry.
But KKHH was never forgotten, and its magic was never duplicated. And as a legion of Indian players and fans will attest, the film’s legacy continued to have an unexpected, memorable impact on Indian basketball.
The future doesn't appear out of thin air; it is prepared, mastered, and perfected in the present. As Indian basketball hopes to take larger leaps in the future, the stars of tomorrow will have to start getting shaped with their performances today. India's senior women's team dreams of breaking the barrier of Asia's top four teams (China, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea), but before our seniors can get there, our youth players have to display their basketball potential. Next week, they will get a chance to do just that.
The top youth (under 16) players from all over the country have been chosen and prepared to start a new cycle of Indian basketball excellence. The Basketball Federation of India (BFI) has announced India's U16 girls' roster for the 2015 FIBA Asia U16 Championship for Women, scheduled to be held in Medan (Indonesia) from August 2-9. The Indian team is led by Head Coach Abhay Chavan from Maharashtra, with assistance from former national captain Divya Singh.
India, who finished fifth at the previous edition of this biennial tournament in Colombo in 2013, will return to 'Level I' of the championship again this year. This is the higher level of teams who can challenge for the title, and India will face up against holders China, Japan, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, and Thailand in the Preliminary Round.
Participating Teams
Level I: China, Japan, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, India, Thailand.
Level II:Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Uzbekistan.
Team India at 2015 FIBA Asia Championship for Women
Neha Vinod Shahu (Maharashtra)
Rutuja Jaywant Pawar (Maharashtra)
Vaishnavi Yadav (Uttar Pradesh)
Ria Sharon (Tamil Nadu)
Snigddha Nair (Karnataka)
Sushantika Chakravortty (Delhi)
Ishwarya Janardhan (Tamil Nadu)
Nishanthi Masilamani (Tamil Nadu)
Shrishti Suren (Tamil Nadu)
Namrata Hooda (Haryana)
Shreyasi Vats (Uttar Pradesh)
Sandhya Chandahalli Raju (Karnataka)
Head Coach: Abhay Chavan
Coach: Divya Singh
“We have been practicing at the Jaypee Greens Indoor facility since the 1st of July,” said Coach Chavan, who was the assistant coach of the side at the same event two years ago. “Last time we lost by heavy margins to the top teams. We expect to perform better this time around.”
Speaking on the subject,
Secretary General of the BFI, Mr. Chander Mukhi Sharma, stated, “We started with 80 girls from across India coming to Jaypee Greens for the selection trials, and these 12 girls proved, through hard work and dedication, that they were the best of the lot. We wish them and the support staff the best of luck in the upcoming Championship, they have the full support and encouragement of the Indian basketball family behind them.”
BFI President, K. Govindraj, reiterated Mr. Sharma’s sentiment, “We are looking to build on the momentum started by the Senior Men’s National Team, which won the gold medal at the 4th SABA Championship earlier this month, and we’re excited for these young girls and the basketball community. The U-16 girls have been provided one of the top practice facilities in India to train and we look forward to their performance during the event. The new BFI leadership is and will remain committed to supporting the youth players of our country, as they will be the foundation of talent over the next 10-15 years.”
India's Schedule - All timings IST
Aug 2: India vs. Korea (11:30 AM)
Aug 3: India vs. Japan (1:30 PM)
Aug 4: India vs. China (3:30 PM)
Aug 5: India vs. Thailand (11:30 AM)
Aug 6: India vs. Chinese Taipei (11:30 AM)
The knockout rounds will be held on August 8-9. If India finish in the top four, they will move on to the tournament's semi-final stage. Else, they will face the top or second-place teams from Level II in a battle to ensure that they remain in Level I for the tournament's next iteration in 2017.
As it usually is for India in FIBA Asia tournaments, the easiest way to a win is always the other 'outsider' team (outside the Big Four) in Level I. This time, that team is Thailand. India have finished 5th the last two times at this tournament, and a win over Thailand will be essential to match our previous efforts again. But the real challenge is to shock one of the Big Four and hope to sneak into to the tournament's semi-final stage. India has yet to do better than their fifth-place finish at this tournament, but if this group of girls are able to achieve the improbable, they could set the ball rolling for a bright future for Indian Women's basketball.
Indian basketball - for all its trials, tribulations, infighting, and drama - could sure use a helping hand. In basketball vernacular, that helping hand comes in the form of an assist, a pass that leads to a score. The player who scores receives the ultimate credit, but it's the passer - or the 'dimer' - who is heralded as the man behind the action, whose initial efforts let to the final success.
DIME Initiatives are hoping to be that helping hand, the assist to lead forward towards the greater good and success for Indian Basketball. DIME aims to assist individuals and organizations in India achieve their goals within the basketball market. For individuals, the assist will be to basketball players of all levels hoping to obtain their highest basketball potential through training (both elite and introductory) and providing them opportunities domestically and abroad, while becoming better and contributing members of society during and long after their playing careers. For organizations, the assist will be to help them achieve achieving their goals be it marketing themselves, their players, or strategically developing and implementing their basketball programmes.
As their first major step, DIME has announced the DIME Basketball Academy, a summer basketball training programme that will tip off on July 2, 2015 at the Jaypee Greens in Greater Noida (Jaypee Greens - Atlantis The Club) for players between the ages of 5-22. The highlight of this academy will be the expert coaches, including national-level coach and former captain Divya Singh and former Canadian Basketball Player of the Year Inderbir Gill.
According to Himanshu Dabir, the founder of DIME Initiatives, their vision is to create a holistic, basketball experience for players and organizations, which will provide opportunities in and outside of India. They hope to provide opportunities that are outside the reach of politics and nepotism, but driven by merit and hard work.
Check out the flyer attached to this post for contact information and free structure for the academy. Anyone interested in joining email can also emailDIMEAcademies@gmail.com or find out more information through DIME Academies' facebook page.
DIME Academies is the training arm of DIME Initiatives, aiming to implement a western style of training of Indian athletes in preparing them for school, college and professional careers in India and abroad. To ensure that the programs implemented are up to par with top Academies across the world, DIME Academies has two Coaching partners with extensive experience coaching and playing abroad and in India.
Himamshu Dabir (Founder, DIME Initiatives): Dabir has been working with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) since 2012, and as the Chief of Basketball Operations since 2013. He has been uniquely positioned to develop and lead all of BFI’s major grassroot initiatives – including working with FIBA in creating Coaching Educational Structure, developing the format and structure of the BFI-IMG Reliance Indian School & College Basketball Leagues, and identifying/hiring of the Foreign Coaches who lead the Indian National Teams. He has built strong relationships with all the major stakeholders involved in Indian basketball and continues to expand his network across the world. Prior to joining the BFI, Dabir obtained his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Pennsylvania State University and a J.D. from Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York City. While obtaining his legal degree, he worked as an intern with the New York Knicks and the NBA Coaches Association. Dabir is in charge of all Business aspects of DIME Initiatives and handles the Operations of DIME Academies.
Inderbir Singh Gill (Co-Director of Coaching): Gill is an International Coach for the Jr. NBA India development program. Within this program, Gill was responsible for conducting after school and elite camps to provide basic and advanced training for top players across India. Gill was a former Player of the Year in Canada, 3x All-Canadian Team, 2x Academic All-Canadian and the 2010 Canadian Male Athlete of the Year (across all-sports). Born and raised in Punjab, Inderbir moved to Seattle, Washington at the age of 11 and immediately thrived playing basketball. With limited knowledge of Indian basketball players in the US, Gill was able to succeed through his hard work on the court and in the weightroom, understanding to reach his full potential, a strong fitness routine is required. Gill will be in charge of the Elite Boarding Academy and in creating individualized training programs for the interested players, while also working with the after-school program.
Divya Singh (Co-Director of Coaching): Singh is a former captain of the Indian National Women's Basketball Team and, most recently, an Assistant Coach for the Senior Women’s National Team under Foreign Coach Francisco Garcia which won the Bronze Medal in Lusofonia Games Goa – 2014 and placed 6th at the 17th Asian Games, Incheon 2014. As a player, Singh has represented India 7 times over here career, with the highlight captaining the Indian Women at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Post her playing career, she her Masters in Sports Management from the University of Delaware in 2010 while working as a Graduate Assistant of the University of Delaware Basketball Team. She was well respected by her teammates for her game skills, leadership qualities, academic strength and fun, outgoing personality. Singh will be in charge of the After School Academy as well as work with the Elite Campers on a regular basis.
Prashanti Singh - the former captain of India's Senior Women's team and one of the four 'Singh Sisters' to have taken women's hoops in India by storm over the past decade - was the subject of the recent documentary 'BA3 - Bosky, Basketball, Banaras' by Akshay Luthra of the Asian School of Media Studies. It was recently announced that the documentary has been shortlisted by the National Students' Film Awards (NSFA).
The documentary, which is just under 25 minutes long, charts the story of Singh - known popularly as 'Bosky' among friends and fans - as she picked up the game of basketball in her hometown of Varanasi (or Banaras) and rode passion all the way to India's national team, leading as captain and delivering India to some of their biggest recent victories. The journey also touches on Singh's struggles to be taken seriously as an Indian women choosing sport against tradition and her rebound after being shockingly dropped by the national team selectors.
Until recently, the documentary was available to be watched freely on YouTube, but the uploaders have since removed it.
Singh's origin story is like that of many others of India's elite women athletes that come from small towns and lower income households. In her case, the story sees her climbing all the way to the top of the totem pole and become one of India's best players. Among other highlights, the documentary focuses on how Singh fought against society as a woman in Varanasi to become an elite basketball player. Her sisters - Pratima, Akanksha, and Divya, all of whom played national or international level basketball for India, too - are featured too: they discuss their family background and how a supportive mother helped them achieve their dreams.
Several of Prashanti Singh's coaches - past and present - also speak in the documentary about the shooting guard's tireless work ethic and will to become the best.
"Basketball is my life, it means everything to me," Singh says of the game that made her, and she also discusses the heavy weight of leadership when she served as India's captain. There is some in-depth discussion of her greatest performances, including the time she led India to a huge upset victory over Korea at the William Jones Cup in 2011.
In 2012, Singh was the center of some controversy when she was surprisingly cut from the national side. The documentary digs out the reason behind this controversial decision and Singh's own reaction to it. She talks about her thoughts of quitting the game, and how her passion for the same game kept her fighting for a rebound opportunity back to the national squad.
The documentary provides many moments of unintentional comedy, all coming from the voice-over narrator and his quirky choice of words. Nevertheless, it can prove inspirational as Singh looks to be a role model to future Indian players. This NSFA nomination will help shine the light further on the player and on Indian basketball as a whole.
While India is yet to produce a world-class basketball talent, there have been several Indian-origin players who have had some measure of success in foreign leagues or with colleges. And in many cases, a number of these players have expressed the desire to look to the country of their origin and contribute to the game. Of course, India has more complex rulings about the naturalization of foreign players, and so many of the playing dreams have been incomplete.
"I am a proud Indian and to represent India and to wear India’s basketball jersey would be the greatest honour for me," Gill said, "Basketball is on the rise in India and it would be great to be a part of it."
That vision didn't materialize, but Gill has found another way of contributing to the growth of Indian hoops over the past few months.
Gill is currently holding an internship position with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), working with India's national coaches on the field and travelling across the country - from Chhattisgarh to Delhi to Gujarat - to track and train young talent. He has been in India since November and his internship - part of the Masters degree in Athletics Leadership that he is currently pursuing with the University of Washington - will stretch out till April.
Gill has worked primarily with India's two foreign national team coaches, Scott Flemming (Men) and Francisco Garcia (Women). He travelled with Garcia, Strength and Conditioning Coach Zak Penwell, and Assistant and former player Divya Singh to hold a basketball camp in Bhilai (Chhattisgarh) starting late November 2013, where he helped train over 50 players from the ages of 6-20. He worked with India's national-level under-14 boys and girls at a camp in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, along with Coach Scott Flemming. And he was also at the Federation Cup in Ahmedabad a couple of weeks ago, watching over India's top talent.
"My schedule has been pleasantly hectic with travels to several camps in the time that I have been here," Gill said, "The best part of my trip has been meeting all the players, the coaches, and the support staff. There is a lot of talent here that just needs the right support and teaching to flourish. It feels great to be contributing towards the future of this game and towards skills development and future of these young talented players."
Gill has been in the unique position to learn from two great coaching minds while teaching to other coaches and young players at the same time. "I have learned a lot from both of the coaches [Flemming and Garcia] in my short time so far. I have not yet had the time to fully reflect on all of the experiences, but that will hopefully happen by the end of the internship! They have differing styles, of course: Coach Flemming's style is American, while Coach Garcia's style is European. The styles reflect somewhat different philosophies but both coaches have been very successful. Despite the differences, they both emphasize the importance of basketball fundamentals and paying attention to detail during the plays."
Gill was born in 1987 in the city of Hoshiarpur in North Punjab. He still has family near Jalandhar. In 1998, when he was just 11 years old, Gill's family left India and immigrated to the United States. They settled in the city of Spokane in Washington State in 2000. It was here that he was first introduced to basketball and the hoops journey took off: Gill used his quickness and natural instincts to master the game and was soon selected for his high school basketball team. From there on, the 6-foot point guard got better every year, leading eventually to his starring years at UNBC.
In UNBC, he was a perfect fit, leading the team to their best-ever finish at the National Tournament in his first season (4th), and being named in the BCCAA first team all star. A year later came the glory - UNBC went 17-1 over the course of the season, finishing at the top of the conference table. Gill was named the CCAA Male Athlete of the Year across all sports, but saved his best for the CCAA National Tournament. Behind 32 points and 6 assists by Gill, UNBC won the CCAA National Championship, and Gill was named the tournament's MVP. A year later, the CCAA recognised him as Player of the Year.
Gill only returned to India twice after immigrating, but this internship has rekindled that long-lost relationship with the country of his birth.
"It's been a lot of fun for me," he says, "I have enjoyed working with the kids: they really want to learn and put in a lot of hours in improving their game."
But India - as we all know - still has a long way to go.
"The camp in Chhattisgarh was a great platform for the players to show their skills and learn. I feel that the players really worked hard but lacked resources, such as proper training facility (the court was too slippery and dangerous to play on), shoes, and basketballs. They spent a great deal of the day (about 6-8 hours) practicing, which I felt is too long for practices and not appropriately utilized. We encouraged them to pay attention to details and to the basketball fundamentals."
"The most shocking and surprising thing for me has been how slow things progress in India," he added, "It is frustrating to see how laziness is delaying the progress of basketball."
"If I could change a few things about basketball in India, I would create an academy where all the national players can practice and be coached all year around. It is evident that our players don't get enough training from experienced or highly qualified coaches which is impeding their success and the growth of basketball in this country."
Gill has his own coaching ambitions of course, and perhaps, even after his internship ends, he will continue to have an eye on progress in India.
"I hope to learn as much as I can about the game of basketball, about the operations of sports, about leadership, and about coaching this amazing game. I have a deep passion for basketball and for working with young players and contributing to their skills development," Gill said. "Being born and raised in India, I do feel a need to give back to this wonderful country and contribute to its development. Sports not only brings people from diverse backgrounds together but also provides a platform for individuals to improve as humans beings and learn the skills of hard work, motivation, working towards a unified goal, and team work--to name a few. Additionally, with our nation's youth being misguided by drugs and lack of activity, sports is a great way to keep the mind, the body, and the society a healthier place."
Gill's story and current involvement with the game is encouraging on various levels. It is great that young basketball players see someone who spent over a decade of his life growing up and India, discovered the game late, and was able to capitalize on the opportunities he received abroad to have a stellar college career. Gill is proof that other Indians can excel in basketball too if they put in the hard work and if India can provide them similar opportunities to the ones he received.
His internship with the BFI will also be an example to others who want to give back to the game in India. Basketball in India is still in its relative infancy, and it can use all the help it can get.
Gill has been truthful about the problems that plague the system, but he was also clear that "the basketball makes up for everything." More importantly, he sees real potential in the future.
"Yes, there is a lot of potential in the young players," he said, "I was impressed with the enthusiasm of the under 14 camp participants and their determination to improve. But, it is important that they keep working hard, and are focused on being properly trained."
12 countries from four continents will take part in nine different sports. One of them is basketball, and the hoops tournament at the Games will be held from January 23-27.
The Games were originally planned to be held in 2013, but was postponed and moved to January 2014 dates.
The countries participating in the Lusofonia Games are: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Macau (China), Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, India, and Sri Lanka.
India, as hosts, will be looking to defend their home turf in both the Men's and Women's divisions in the basketball tournament at the Games. In preparation, the BFI has announced 17 probables for each team to undergo a training camp from January 10-18 at the Don Bosco Matunga in Mumbai. Several names announced in the list of probables were Goan, leading to the BFI denying allegations of a Goan quota for the final teams. The popular Savio Cup basketball tournament will also be taking part at the venue during this time, so a lot of probables will also be actively participating and gaining exposure in one of India's most prestigious club championships.
India's foreign coaches Scott Flemming (Men) and Francisco Garcia (Women) will be leading the two squads. Indian international star Divya Singh will be playing the role of Assistant Coach for the Women's team this time. Women's superstars Geethu Anna Jose and Anitha Paul Durai haven't been selected for this camp, probably to rest them and give an opportunity to younger Women's stars.
Here are India's probables for the Lusofonia Games Basketball Tournament:
Outside of Brazil (who will probably not sent a strong team for this) and perhaps Macau, there isn't likely to be any other big challenge to India in the basketball tournament, so the Young Cagers could seriously be aiming for a medal finish.
The other sports at the Lusofonia games in Goa are Athletics, Football, Judo, Taekwondo, Table Tennis, Volleyball, Beach Volleyball, and Wushu. Also, if you're into that sort of thing, the mascot for the Lusofonia Games in Goa is 'JOJO The Majestic Rooster'. Yup.
