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A fine balancing act
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The Chinmaya Vidyalaya team is an interesting mix and includes a couple of class toppers and the school's ace sprinters
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PHOTO: H. VIBHU
WINNING COMBO The Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Tripunithura, girls team
Tuitions, school, special classes. Life is one stressful cycle for most CBSE students in their 10th and 12th standards these days. But a few youngsters from the Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Tripunithura, have managed to balance academics and sport smartly.
The Chinmaya girls won the CBSE all-Kerala volleyball tournament, for the fourth consecutive year while the boys finished runner-up.
Surprisingly, the girls' team is virtually a new bunch. With almost the entire last year's batch moving out after finishing the 12th standard, the team had to begin from scratch this season. The side is an interesting mix. Led by Aswathy Varma, it includes the school's ace sprinters Roshini and Anushree, Bhagyalakshmi who excels in music and a couple of class toppers, Shreya and Amritha. "Frankly, we didn't expect to win this time," said captain Aswathy, a 12th standard student. Chinmaya's opponent in the trophy-decider, Bhavan's Varuna Vidyalaya (Kakkanad), also sounded a bit surprised when it reached the final. "We're also a bunch of fresh faces. Getting children to play is a big problem. Studies take a lot of time and parents are not keen on their children taking up sport," said Harindranath, the Physical Education teacher at Varuna Vidyalaya.
Despite the disadvantage, Varuna Vidyalaya took the first set and made the final a seat-edge thriller all the way. And, as with most encounters between good girls, there were no hard smashes, just soft touches and pushes. "That's the way we play, its soft attack," explained Aswathy, who was adjudged the best player among girls. But there were a number of service aces and shrewd drops, which have made the Chinmaya team a force to reckon with in Ernakulam District.
A month-long camp during the summer vacation and a couple of hours practice every day during the last two months came in handy for Chinmaya as it squeezed through some tight twists and turns in the decider. But the CBSE children have miles to go in the sport. Overall, the quality of play was nowhere near the top-drawer stuff regularly dished out by children of general schools in Kerala, the country's leading volleyball nursery. However, there are a few exceptions. Like the promising Arun Narayanan of the Chinmaya team who unleashed some impressive jump serves and smashes in the boys final against SN, Chentrappini.
For many years, the general impression given by the CBSE students was that they were just a bunch of bookworms. Happily that is now changing.
STAN RAYAN
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