Srinivas-kabaddi player who made it through the brawl of life

"We had no sponsors, no money, no uniform or shoes. Sports gear, everything was sourced from personal income"

Vasudha Zora | NT

Bengaluru: Srinivas at Vidyarthi Bhavan is another regular man who made it through the brawl of life and now lives for himself. He is a statelevel Kabaddi player and has been felicitated by Anil Kumble, Kumarswami, BC Patel, C M Lingappa and many more. Though he was facilitated with flowers, garland, caps, shawls and medals by inviting him to programmes, no monetary benefit has accrued to him from any quarters.

Due to his sports quota, he was asked to work for Vijaya bank, where he represented the bank in the sport and remained with them for 25 year from 1975 to 2000. After his retirement, he joined the Vidyarti Bhavan in 2008. He remembers that when he was a child, he would play Kabaddi with his neighbourhood friends until one day, a guru spotted him and decided to train him, after which he played from 1975 to 1981.

He played for the university teams, he then got pushed ahead and represented the state. He now lives in Kumaraswamy and has two daughters who are married with children. He proudly shares that his grandchildren are studying engineering at a prestigious college which was something he could not afford back in his day.

On being asked about the new trend in the sport and the leagues today as compared to facilities and recognition they got in his days he said, "We had no sponsors, no money, no uniform or shoes, sports gear, everything was sourced from personal income and from our homes. In fact, we didn’t have professional training or coaching.

"We just played with natural talent and crowd support. Though kabaddi is an Indian sport. It was not given any importance, only now with the kabaddi league and auctioning of players, some recognition and monetary benefits have been introduced to the sport, defining a promising future for professional kabaddi players."

He also added," We have not received any support from the government. I was trained by my gurus and later on, I started training children free of cost to help in building and keeping alive our own traditional sport."