The Forgotten Glory ….. Down Memory Lane

The Forgotten Glory ….. Down Memory Lane
The First Inter Engineering Colleges Winter Meet (West Bengal)
Host B.E. College (Shibpur)

Ajay Debnath, 1970, Electrical Engineering
And, special remembrance by Sri Sujit Banerjee, RE College, Durgapur

It was probably the last week of the month of October 1969, a special meeting of the Bengal Engineering College Athletic Committee was convened. I was invited as the captain of the athletics section and to our great joy and pleasure, it was decided that we shall host the first ever ‘Inter Engineering Colleges Winter Meet’ (West Bengal) at our own grounds. Our Tapan Mukherjee (‘70, Civil) took over the responsibility as the Secretary of the First Winter Meet Organising Committee. The dates were then finalized after consulting with all the participating colleges, and the events were to start from 24th November till 27th of November. The meet was marked as an event of historic significance and all of us were proud to host a gala event by our Alma Matar.

The B.E. College campus exhibited a festive look and greeted by the beautiful shiny weather adding warmth and joie de vivre to this extraordinary arena of sports and games. The events were initiated with the lighting of the torch and taking it round the Oval and placing it on the stand, by our beloved Prashanta Banerjee (1973, Civil)।

Our Chief Guest, Mr. Pankaj Gupta, Secretary of the Indian Olympic Association inaugurated the ‘first –time ever’ Eastern India Engineering Colleges meet. Representatives, sportspersons and athletes of all engineering colleges of Bengal, namely, CET Jadavpur, Marine Engineering College, Taratola (DMET), Regional Engineering College, Durgapur (REC), Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College (JGEC) and obviously our own B.E. College joined the eye-catching march-past and tendered salute to the Chief Guest. The march-past was led by our well-orchestrated College Band and the whole atmosphere turned out so solemnly but beautifully that everybody present were overtaken by emotions and the veteran of the Indian Sports, Mr. Pankaj Gupta was so overwhelmed that he visualized the coming days at the then ensuing Munich Olympics.

Tapan Mukherjee (1970 Civil) was the then General Secretary of the B.E. College Athletic Club, took the responsibility of managing the show as the Secretary of this glamorous event. Pradip Das (1970 Civil), more popular as ‘Pop Das’, took all the trouble as the Convener of this gala event and responsible for picking up and ushering the honorable guests. Eventually he was also the captain of our basketball team. My batch mates Sankar Mitra (Mechanical) was the captain of Football team and Sudip Roy (Mechanical) was the member of the Volleyball team. Manideepa Ganguly (’71, Electronics & Tele Communication) was at the helm of Reception Committee.

Event wise tallies are given below:
Table Tennis:
DMET Engineering College won this event beating REC by 3 matches to 2.
JGEC Engineering College got the third place.

Football: (2 points were given to the winners and one point for a drawn game).
CET won the event beating REC by a whopping 7-0 margin in their concluding match. The main feature of this match was a hattrick by T. Ghose who netted four goals altogether. A. Banerjee (2) and B. Mukherjee (1) scored the other goals. REC became the runner up.
The final table was –
CET – 6 Points, REC – 4 Points, BEC – 2 Points, and JGEC – 1 Point.

Badminton:
CET beat DMET by three sets to nil and won the event.
Details are D. Ghose beat S. Ghose (15-12, 15-7).
Sunit Lahiri beat D. Bakshi (15-3, 15-5).
Doubles pair D. Ghose and Sunit Lahiri beat S. Ghose and D. Bakshi (15-5, 15-7).

Basketball:
CET beat JGEC by 51-35 points thus winning the event. Eventually, DMET became the runner up by getting walk-over against BE College.

Volleyball:
CET won the event. BE College under the captaincy of Sankar Mitra (’70 ME) became the runners up by beating REC (15-5, 15-3,15-4).
The final table was:
CET – 4 Points, BEC – 2 Points, REC – 1 Point.

Hockey: 1. CET 2. DMET 3. REC

Athletics (Track & Field Events):
Final points tally in athletic events:
BEC 61 Points CET 51 Points DMET 21 Points REC 16 points

Overall Institutional Points Tally
CET 71 Points BEC 68 Points DMET 33 Points REC 23 Points JGEC 1 Point

Prashanta Banerjee (1973 CE) of B.E. College was adjudged the best athlete of this meet with 13 points.
Those others who contributed to our BEC points were Dipankar Mukherjee (‘73 ME), myself Ajay Debnath (‘70 EE) with 12 points, Asish Saha, D. Chatterjee, K. Mishra and Samarendra Nath Karmakar (‘70 EE).

Some interesting incidents and Highlights:
• A. Guha, the goalkeeper of the CET team, after playing full time for his side’s football match, he ran from Lords to Oval to compete in the last event of the athletics 4x100m Relay race as the last man on the last day and helped his college to win both the events and even to chinch the championship trophy. A Guha also won gold medal in triple & silver medal in Broad Jump. Before the 4x 100 m relay race, the points earned by CET was 66 and BEC was 65. But in this event, CET got 5 points for being the winner of relay race whereas BE College earned only 3 points. A. Guha also participated and won gold (3 points) in Triple Jump and silver (2 points) in Broad Jump thus earned 10 individual points (5 points. in 4x100m Relay Race). No individual points were given to medal winners in any games.
• Sujit Banerjee of Durgapur ’72 batch, who participated mostly in team events, and due to his sportsmanship, unlimited enthusiasm and energy, playing in many events, became the most blue-eyed boy of the meet.
• Prashanta Banerjee (BEC) participated in 6 events which were 100m (Silver – 2 pts), 200m (Gold -3 pts), 110m Hurdle (Gold -3 pts), 4x100m Relay (Silver -3 pts), Triple Jump (Bronze -1 pt), Broad Jump (Bronze – 1pt) and was awarded with 13 points.
• Ajay Debnath (BEC) also participated in 6 events of 400m (Gold -3 pts), 800m (Gold -3 pts), 110m Hurdle (Bronze -1 pts), 4x100m Relay (Silver -3 pts). Discus Throw (Bronze -1 pt), 1500m (Bronze – 1pt) and was awarded with 12 points.

An accident, of course not of very serious nature, took place on Wednesday i.e., on 26th November. At the time of returning the javelin after a throw by one of the competitors, one of the ground-staffs of our Athletic Club got hurt and was taken to the hospital for treatment. He was later released after proper medical treatment.

All our B.E. College students co-operated like anything who vacated their rooms on war footing to accommodate friends from REC and JPGE who stayed in our campus for 4/5 days.
And it would not be out of the way to mention about the special diet that was arranged for my classmate Samarendra Nath Karmakar (70, EE), popularly known as Golu (one of my best friends) in Wolfenden Hostel so that he could earn 3 points for BEC in the ‘Shot Put’ event. And…he did it

Author’s observation (purely personal point of view with no sting attached):
• We didn’t get the valuable services of Asoke Mukherjee (the handsome giant) in the field event, and Tarun Chakraborty in the track event whose BEC record timing in the 100m sprint is still untouched and the then record time holder in the 1966 All India-Eastern Region 400m race.
• We earned a total of only 7 points from all the game events as against 20 points earned by CET. Had we got some more points in the games, we could have been the champions.
• The author was the captain of the Athletic Team of BEC, and he had to sacrifice his favourite event of 200m race where a 2nd place was almost assured and could have turned the table with a difference of 5/ 6 points.

On the final day i.e on 27th November, Lt Gen. J.S. Arora, GOC in C of the Eastern Command gave away the prizes amidst cheers and applause. The famous Dutch airlines company K.L.M was our sponsor for the trophy, the prize for the championship of the first Engineering College Games was received by the CET Athletic secretary with pride and dignity. Among other dignitaries, was seated Mr. D.M.J. Viruli of the KLM and presided over the closing ceremony.

The B.E. College Challenge Trophy was also handed over to CET.
The prize for the best athlete of the meet went to Prashanta Banerjee of B.E. College and he was appreciated by one and all for this glorious achievement and grand success.

Concluding and The Last Event –A Get Together
The Last Event of the winter meet was a friendly musical get together in our Institute Hall. All the colleges displayed their histrionic qualities and skill in music and dancing. Everyone enjoyed the show in the jam-packed Institute Hall with rapt attention. The mariners (DMET) presented their Orchestras- their guitars and the drums, “Escape”, Get- Back……The hosts’ performance was greatly appreciated from the very start up to the dances. The College Orchestra went on with Diamond Head, the Guiter boogie and Tequila.

A Special Note: Obituary
Our important team members of the 1st Winter meet, those are no more with us (so far the author’s knowledge goes):
• Tapan Mukherjee (1970, Civil), the Secretary of the First Winter Meet left us long back.
• Prashanta Banerjee (1973 CE), the hero of the meet died prematurely.
• Sankar Mitra (1970, ME), our the then football captain had an accidental death due to sudden gush of water and swept away while bathing downstream of the Maithon Dam.
• Samarendra Nath Karmakar (1970 EE), 1st in shot put and one of the author’s best friends, died due to kidney failure.
Let us pray for their souls.

Sources:
⦁ College News.
⦁ The Amrit Bazaar Patrika.

My special thanks to Satyadas Chakraborty, Sudip Roy, Siddhartha Roy, Debkumar Roy (all 1970 ME), Hiranmay Ganguly (1970 EE) and Pradip (Pop) Das (1970 Civil) for their valuable inputs. And, last but not the least, thanks to Asim Deb, the main Editor of Sahityika and also the admin of our popular ‘B E College Face Book’ group who urged me to write on this unforgettable nostalgic event.

BEC Winter Meet Teams, ’69 & ’73: The names are recollected from individual’s memory with best efforts. Mistakes, if any, or missing names are unintentional.

Football team ‘69
Sekhar Ranjan Bhadra Chowdhury, Samir Kumar Dutta in Goal.
Manas Roy, Ashish Saha (Engine), Priti Gopal Saha, in Defence
Swapan Kumar Ghosh (Nantu), Sankar Mitra in Halfline
Manoj Burman, Prasanta Kumar Banerjee, Jnan Ranjan Bhawmik, Prabir Deb (Balu) in forward line.
• Source: Jnan Ranjan Bhawmik

Volleyball team ’69 – Shankar Mitra, Sudip Ray (Captain), Prafulla, Pradip Sen, Debkumar Ray, (all Mechanical), Kalyan Mukherjee (Civil), Sankar Ghosh Hazra (Loga) (Electrical), Shambunath Banerjee, Amitava Mookherjee (Civil) and Tapan, (1971 Civil)
• Source: Sudip Roy, Pradip (Pop) Das

Hockey team ’69 – Ashok Mukherjee, Gnan Ranjan Bhowmick, Rathin Banerjee, Charlie, Kohali, Amitava Sen, Prakash Sresthi, Shovan, Gautam Majumdar, Swapan Ghosh Dastidar, Ranjan Ghosh Dastidar, Gurbachan Singh
• Source: Ritwik Dutta

Basketball team ’69 – Pradip (Pop) Das (Captain), Ramesh Dalmia, Prakash Shresthi, Amit Roy, Peter Lee, Basnet, Udit Dhar, Tapan Mukherjee, and Sanjay Chakrabarty.
• Source: Pradip (Pop) Das, Sanjay Chakrabarty

Chess team ‘69 – Kanak (Captain), Swapan Chowdhury, Sarasij Majumder, and two others. We won the final, against Jadavpur.
• Source – Sarasij Majumder

Bridge team ‘69 – Dilip Dan, Sarasij Majumder, and 4 others. We reached the final winning against Jadavpur, but then lost to REC in the final.
• Source – Sarasij Majumder

Hockey team ‘73 – Swapan De, Peter Lee, Raghu Nandi, Debabrata Dutta, Manik Banerjee, Kailash Mallick, Ajay Sarkar (Captain), Bikramjit, Gautam Majumdar, Binimoy Dutta, Amitava Jana.
• Source – Ritwik Dutta, Asim Deb, Manik Banerjee

Football team ‘73 – Dipesh Das, Ranen Kundu, Subhankar De, Manas Roy, Badal Modak, Amit Roy, Subir Mitra, Somnath Chatterjee, Dilip Roy (Pagla Dilip), Debabrata Banerjee.
• Source: Subhankar De

Badminton team ’73: Kailash Mallick, Debabrata Guha
• Source: Asim Deb

Basketball team ’73 – Sanjay Chakrabarty, Peter Lee, Sriram Bhagat Mathe, Tapan Mukherjee, Badal Modak, Bimal Modak, Debabrata Dutta, Shikhoresh Dutta.
• Source: Sanjay Chakrabory

Volleyball team ’73: Aloke Chatterjee, Debabrata Chaudhury, Ritwik Dutta, Ananta Deb Dutta, Iar Mohammad Midda, Bhaskar Sen, Durgadas Banerjee, Utpal Sarkar.
• Source: Ananta Deb Dutta

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Remembrance by Sri Sujit Banerjee, RE College, Durgapur

Introduction by Sahityika Editorial Team:
Sujit Banerjee is not an alumnus of BE College, he is from RE College, Durgapur. During our 1969 Winter Meet, he represented RE College, came and stayed at BE College campus. Author remembers those days, and sends the following to his BE College friends:

As they say;
Those were the days my friend
We thought they would never end
We would sing and dance forever and a day
For we were young and sure to have our way.

So here I was, the 1969 December, in B.E. College, Shibpur campus to represent my R.E. College, Durgapur, for the Inter Engineering Winter Meet.
I was playing Table tennis, Basketball and Hockey.
Table tennis: I was very good
Basketball: I was ok, since I had started playing in school at St Xavier’s, Jaipur
Hockey: I was very bad.

I have to appreciate the sportsmanship of the B.E. College students who moved 30 ft away from the table to enable me to retrieve shots as I was a defensive player. Thanks to their cooperation I won all my matches.
Basketball those days was not about heights but more about speed and agility, which thankfully I had because I was into athletics.
Since I was no good in hockey I was told not to worry where the ball was but to guard the opposition player who played for the state. So, for all the 60 minutes I was always within 5 ft from the state player including half time break. Because of my close proximity to him, he was not able to receive any ball from his teammates. But in spite of all my efforts he scored the winning goal.

After the game, I was asked by one of the BE College girls to come to ladies’ hostel for tea. I was thrilled, but the boys had other ideas. They said nothing doing and took me to their hostel. Knowing that I had to play the next morning, they made sure that I had an early dinner and gave me their best bed for a comfortable sleep. Imagine, being so considerate to an unknown competitor.

I have learnt a very important lesson that day. It matters not who wins, somebody will. It is whether you have given your best and the spectators always know and appreciate in their own way.

Thank you, B.E. College friends for your kindness. You were and always will be an adorable asset to your college.

I have settled in Pune, now. All are welcome to stay with me.

Regards.
Sujit Banerjee, +91-9823052932