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They pursue art as a ’hobby’

Photo: Lingaraj Panda

Inmates of the sports hostel have put up these decorative designs on their campus at Berhampur Stadium in Berhampur. —

BERHAMPUR: The children and youth who sweat out to get trained as future sportsperson also have intrinsic artistic talent hidden in them.

One gets a feel of it while inside the Berhampur sports hostel at Berhampur stadium.

The artistry of interior decoration and artefacts adorning this sports hostel campus makes one wonder whether it is a sports hostel or a hostel for arts students. The inhabitants of the sports hostel seem to be trying to prove the old Oriya saying wrong which says ‘physical toil and sport destroy the finesse in a being’.

Thirty two students reside in this sports hostel. Ten of them are players of basketball, 12 are for volleyball and the rest ten are budding weight lifters.

They have a very hectic life as they have to undergo rigorous physical training and training of their respective sport apart from attending classes’ in a school of the city. The coach of the sport hostel, Sachindra Majhi says, “He had tried to get the budding sportspersons of this sport hostel interested art and craft as a past time. The will power of these youths and children also showed up in this field also.”

Now they take out time every week to think of some innovative art and craft project, which could add to the decor of the sport hostel campus. They experiment with different mediums. A former member of this sport hostel, Sumanta Badatya was a sand artist.

The coach Mr. Majhi says his students Rakesh Pradhan and Nilamabar Dibaga are on par with any standard artist in their art work. A large Olympic symbol made of used tyres near the entrance, a huge golden cup with flags of all major sporting nations in the dining hall, decorated earthen pots outside the rooms surely makes one wonder, have the same hands that lift weights made them.

Most noteworthy work of these students is a formation comprising of fifty flags of foot ball playing nations drawn over granite pieces arranged in a circle with a concrete ball in the middle increases the beauty of the lawn. A large drift wood artifact depicting basketball movement also adorns the campus.

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