Here is a photograph taken in 1975, the first national-level Basketball team in Bangladesh. Yours truly (in the circle) the youngest of the lot. (I was just past SSC, everyone else in university.) Big guy in the front is Coach who came to train us from the Soviet Union (those were Basketball heydays for USSR - they had beaten the US in 1972 Munich Olympics.) Anyone recognize who is third from right in middle row? (A second "schoolkid" in the team, Dastagir, was absent on Photo Day.)
Here is another photograph 30 years later, in 2005. The group of friends in Silicon Valley who I played with for a few years. This time yours truly (in circle) the second oldest of the lot. And feeling emotional because these guys had helped ease me back into the game after a 25 year break, but now it was time for me to leave.
When the USSR was breaking up in the 80s I found myself often thinking about Coach. He was a decent and proud Russian. Surely it must have been hard for him to watch his country disintegrate and lose its place as Superpower.
sistunes
Friday, September 29, 2006