Trishanjit Chatterjee loves the action. Picture by Aranya Sen

They fancy neither cricket nor the camera. The first girl of Eden Gardens and the first boy of Tollywood would rather kick in the air and hit punching bags.

Sana Ganguly, 6, and Trishanjit Chatterjee, 3, are picking up martial arts with a pat on their back from their dads, Sourav Ganguly and Prosenjit.

“Sourav wanted Sana to learn karate because Sachin’s (Tendulkar) daughter Sara is into it and Sourav was impressed by her physique. Sana has been training for the past month and has got hooked on it,” said Sourav’s dancer wife Dona.

Neither the captain of Kolkata Knight Riders nor the main man of Tollywood wants his little one to pore over books all the time. “My wife Arpita and I want to keep Trishanjit engaged with all kinds of extra-curricular activities. He plays the tabla pretty well and is also learning swimming. Ever since he joined the karate classes, Trishanjit has started loving my action scenes. He has become friendly with my fightmaster and loves to hit his punching bag when home,” said Prosenjit, who was interested in karate as a kid and thinks he has passed on his love for martial arts to his son.

Sana, too, has many interests. “She is a regular in swimming, painting and dance classes,” said Dona.

Sana Ganguly is hooked on karate. Picture by Aranya Sen

The kids train with the same coach at karate camps run by the All India Seishinkai Shito-Ryu Karate-Do Federation. “Both Sana and Trishanjit are in the white belt class, which is for beginners. They are learning karate, fitness, self-defence and kick-boxing. Trishanjit enrolled only a fortnight back and he is getting the hang of it. Sana has been around for about a month and is doing well,” said Premjit Sen, the coach and president of the Karate-Do Association of Bengal, who trains the two twice a week.

While Trishanjit visits a south Calcutta club, Sana trains at her Behala residence where her mother runs the dance school Diksha Manjari. Both mothers sit through the karate sessions, checking on their kids’ progress.

“Trishanjit was in tears on the first day but his mother insisted that he must try karate. Now he is a lot excited about it. Dona, too, takes a lot of interest in what her daughter is learning,” added Sen.