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Sitwala is a
diamond forever, says Harshad Mehta
by
Maitreyi
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Dhruv Sitwala,
who reached the World No 2 rank for the first time when finishing
runner-up to Mike Russell at the World Professional Billiards
Championships at Leeds last week was felicitated by the PJ Hindu
Gymkhana, the club where he practices and represents in local events
on Monday.
Their
newly-elected president, Harshad Mehta, presented him with a Ganesha
idol plus Rs.50,000 as a personal gift.
Mehta said,
"I am a diamond merchant whose job is to look
for fine diamonds. Now as the gymkhana president. I am adding the
job of looking for diamonds in sport like Sitwala. He is a diamond
forever."
Mehta said he
always loved the gymkhana and its ambience of sport. He said he
respected sport folk who gave their all to sport. He cited the
instance of his own son Rihen Mehta who swam the English Channel at
the age of 12 by practicing 17 hours a day.
"That’s the dedication needed to reach the top."
Leroy D’Sa,
Indian baddy doubles great, who is a regular at the gymkhana, asked
Dhruv to give them a chance to felicitate him by becoming No 1.
Pradeep
Vijayakar, well-known cue sports writer, who is also a gymkhana
member, said the fact that Dhruv lost by just above 500 points
showed the level of his improvement. He said Mehta and the gymkhana
should provide Dhruv with a table-side coach to make him reach the
top spot which is always the hardest. He said the great Wilson Jones
had told him that Subhash Agarwal missed out on getting to the top
spot because of absence of such a coach.
Raju Choradia
traced the career of Sitwala adding "you
couldn’t find a more self-effusive champ than him".
Sitwala said he
had been playing at the gymkhana since a decade and his game
improved after watching former World No.2 Devendra Joshi play. He
said there were three factors that contributed to his performance.
One, co-operation of members. Two, the facilities, which Geet Sethi
said were the best in the country, three the help of the markers and
four the help of the gymnasium people led by Sumeet Anand who
insisted he work out and tone his muscles.
Letter from Mr. Sindhu Pulsirivong
New Delhi
:: 16
October
2010
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