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Bengal's Apathy to a Cricket Prodigy

Another edition (10th) of IPL has passed by. Mumbai Indians won the coveted trophy deservingly. Our very own Kolkata Knight Riders failed to rise to our expectations. We, Calcuttans are lamenting, naturally. Afterall, we are sports loving fraternity and when it comes to cricket, our passion goes overboard. When cricket conjugates with Bollywood, especially a star as big as Mr. Shah Rukh Khan, the whole scenario becomes frenzied.

Unfortunately, achievements by a Bengal Tigress, in the field of sports, with its aura spread across global platform got eclipsed in this frenzy. The journey of Jhulan Goswami, a simple Bengali Girl from a very humble background to the pinnacle of world of cricket is simply outstanding and deserves special accolades. It is more so, as anyone associated with our society will admit what an uphill task it is to pursue a dream as expensive as playing cricket, specially being a woman. Thousands of hindrances fangs out and creates innumerable hurdles on the way. Beyond cricketing excellence one has to continuously confront this battle outside the cricket field in their daily life. Achieving what Jhulan has achieved is really special and no word of praise is enough for her.  
   

We all know, beside the Brand Ambassador of West Bengal, Mr. Shah Rukh Khan is a sports lover himself too. Though it is only during IPL season, he becomes a regular flyer to Kolkata, unlike rest of the year, when he is hardly to be seen around, except promoting his movies.  We expected him, as a sports loving personality as he is and being brand ambassador of Bengal, to reach out to Jhulan with acknowledgement of her feat. But sadly enough, it didn’t happen. Maybe he was too busy in his schedule or ruing the defeat of his franchise, but no one from his team has stepped forward showing the gesture to communicate to Jhulan on his franchise’s behalf, at least publicly.  We, the natives of Bengal have high expectations from a man of his stature and we felt dejected by this whole episode. On the other hand, the role of our state governments can also be questioned. Government organises special ceremony for the IPL win of a franchise team but remains mum on the achievement of Jhulan. We preach for equal rights of girl child in our society but don’t lend our hand to pat them when they achieve. Hope, our honourable Chief Minster will surely deliberate on this. 

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