ROOMS WITH A VIEW: On Saturday, Dalhousie Institute officially opened three dedicated sports rooms located near the new gym. (from top) Ryan’s Snooker Room, Jimmy’s Pool & Dart Room and PC’s TT Room wear a cheerful look. The green walls of the snooker room are decked with frames of old documents and minutes of DI meetings dating back to around a 100 years. The darts room has happy collages of club events, while the orange walls of the TT Room have names of DI table tennis champs sketched in graffiti. “The three rooms are named in memory of past presidents or great members of the club to preserve our history and heritage,” said Barry ’ Brien, club president.

CLAUDIUS-GURBUX sports zone: Leslie Claudius and Gurbux Singh, after whom the new Claudius-Gurbux Sports Zone is named, pose with aspiring DI boys and girls. “I have been a member of DI since 1982, this is indeed my second home. I live in a building overlooking the club and have spent a lot of my time here playing badminton, as have my children. I have looked up to Leslie Claudius and Keshav Dutt as my mentors and inspiration,” said one-time national hockey champ Gurbux Singh.

WALL OF FAME: The 42 Jhowtala Road club felicitated “true sporting champions” by inaugurating the DI Wall of Fame, located next to the club’s swimming pool. On the wall find citations marking the achievements of players like Russi Jeejeebhoy, Nafisa Ali, Vece Paes, Samar Mukherjee, Shyam Jagtiani, Shireen Kiash, Jennifer Paes, Leander Paes, Pradip Choudhury, Compton Dutta, Shyamal Banerjee, Biswajit Bhattacharya, Tarit Kumar Sett and Abhijit Sett, other than Claudius and Singh. “I appreciate the honour bestowed on me. I thank god today. It is your support that has led to all this,” said 1971 Padma Shri awardee Claudius, after unveiling his citation.

PRESIDENT SPEAK: “You need to keep up with the times and develop infrastructure and facilities. But I am also a greater believer in drawing inspiration from the past. This club is 153 years old and it was about time that we looked back and celebrated these great players. This club is also steeped in sports, especially indoor ones. We have a great TT, snooker and bridge team. So the idea is to motivate young people through the likes of TT and snooker coaching to concentrate on sports and keep their minds off less important things,” said Barry.

Former club president Derek ’Brien at the inauguration of the Claudius-Gurbux Sports Zone.

Text: Madhurima Chatterjee

Pictures by Rashbehari Das