The athlete in you!
They say mastery comes with years of practice coupled with hard work and dedication.
Ingrained with the enthusiasm to scale fresh heights, flocks of children at the Shillong cricket academy can be seen exhibiting such prowess as they train to hone their cricketing skills.
If you take a trip to Polo Grounds between 8 and 11 am on any weekend, you’ll see children in white attires dedicate themselves to training. And although a deep sense of respect for the game emanates from every child, one cannot help but notice how wonderful these children look on a green pitch as they move in groups during their session while the morning sun shines on them.
In what can be called an interesting observation, the SJ team found that girls were in far less numbers compared to boys at the academy, which goes on to say that not many girls are being encouraged to take up the sport.
When spoken to, a volunteer at the academy revealed that the academy wants more girls to come forward and train in this discipline of sports.
A father of two daughters, one of whom is a student at the academy, said, “I will make my daughter a cricketer. This is her choice and will. I didn’t force her into this (joining the academy). I asked her to choose a sport and she chose cricket, and here we are.”
“My youngest will be a boxer!” he told the SJ team.
Even this parent went on to highlight that there is a need to encourage more girls to sincerely take up sports, be it any discipline. “In the future, this field (women cricket) will get very competitive,” he added.
Although braving the early morning chill and finding the will to consistently pursue a sport is daunting, some girls have surely shown the grit. If some of them can do it, the rest can too!
A change for good
A week ago, at the crossroads near Bishnupur Dispensary, an apathetic view lay in front of the eyes of passers-by — a wash basin at Bishnupur that had turned into a dustbin.
But go there now, and you’ll see a change!
This sight of apathy and filth that once sat unbothered on this pavement is now a clean portion of cement where one would see two-wheelers parked, if you must’ve passed by the place on Sunday.
Incidentally, the SJ team had earlier captured photographs which were published here. In case it was missed out by our readers. The wash basin was compared to a dustbin in the photo. Visibly, the basin was filled with garbage dumped arbitrarily over the course of time making the very sight of the utility an eyesore for most.
Nonetheless on Sunday, it came to our notice that the wash basin was removed and that portion of the road looked clean.
Although this proves that some may have championed the need for keeping your surrounding clean, people however could’ve awoken their conscience sooner and avoided dumping rubbish in the basin in the first place.