Brijesh Damani and (above) his grandmother Sushila Devi, wife Pooja, son Pritish and father Rajesh at their Kankurgachhi home. Pictures by Amit Datta

The Calcuttan who is bringing home India’s first Asiad snooker medal still cannot stop brooding about the final match.

“We tried our best to humble the mighty Chinese in their backyard but they were just too good,” Brijesh Damani of Kankurgachhi told Metro from Guangzhou about Monday’s match.

The team silver the 27-year-old is trying to mentally settle for is the only medal a sportsperson from Bengal has won in the Asiad so far.

And even the crestfallen Brijesh, who along with Yasin Merchant and Aditya Kumar, stormed into the final beating Pakistan 3-0 before going down 1-3 against China, concedes that the medal is “in a way” special.

“My son Pritish is six months old and this is my first medal after he was born. Also, my grandfather Shree Chand Damani passed away last year. He would have been very happy with the silver,” said the commerce graduate from St Xavier’s College, Calcutta.

He finds no joy in being the only medallist from Bengal and wants others to “catch up”. The table tennis team won’t with Poulomi Ghatak and Subhajit Saha not being able to defy rankings and repeat their stellar show at the Delhi Commonwealth Games.

However, the state’s other medal hopefuls, archer siblings Dola Banerjee and Rahul Banerjee, are yet to start their Asiad campaign.

Brijesh started playing under the guidance of his father Rajesh, who had represented Bengal in snooker, in 1998 at the age of 16. He was skilled enough to win the state junior championship next year. He started representing Bengal in the national senior competition in 2002.

Brijesh’s mother Sashi recalled that he would play snooker at YMCA on Vivekananda Road even during his Class X and XII board examinations. “I never stopped him because he was serious about his studies and did well in exams,” she said.

In his first year at St Xavier’s, the authorities had refused him leave for the national championships in Jammu and Kashmir before relenting. “He did not even have to sit for the first-year final exams,” said Sashi.

No wonder the first phone call Brijesh made after winning the Asiad silver was to Father Felix Raj, the principal of St Xavier’s College.

“I knew Father (Felix Raj) would be very happy about my achievement. He had called me after I won gold at the Indoor Asian Games in Vietnam last year. My college is very special to me even now,” said Brijesh.

A phone call or a letter of appreciation is what the snooker champion has not received from the state sports department or the Bengal Olympic Association (BOA) after his gold last year or the silver on Monday.

Aditya Mehta of Maharashtra and Manan Chandra of Delhi, with whom Brijesh had won the Indoor Asian Games gold, received Rs 10 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, respectively, from their state governments.

“Brijesh wrote about his achievement to our sports minister (Kanti Ganguly) and the BOA three times each but did not receive a reply,” says Rajesh.

The champion can allow himself to brood about a match but not about official apathy. “Maybe, I have not received a call because I have not been using my Calcutta mobile number in China,” he reasoned.

He would be disappointed to know that a top BOA official Metro called on Wednesday did not know of his Asiad achievement.

“Where does the snooker player live?” the official asked.