AKA Hyderabad turns 10 : Annual Sports Day

I vividly remember Sports Day 2014. Me and my co-captain were up on the stage in the Commons and we could not believe that we had won. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, all the students in our house were chanting ‘Go Nizam’ as the Nizam House was awarded the ‘House Shield’ and continued to come up on stage with us. The Blue flag which represented the Nizam House was waving in the Commons and I could see the pride and wonder on even the youngest of our house-mates. Fast forward to five years later, Sports Day 2019. The only colours you could see around were blue, green, yellow and red. Every student and member of staff were decked head to toe in one of these four colours. The excitement, competitiveness and festivity was contagious. One could almost get lost in the frenzy of it all! It had only been about three months since I had come back to the academy as a fellow and this was one of the first times since then that I could see the vigour in every students’ eyes. 

I thought back to my time as a student at the Academy, waking up in the wee hours of the morning to the rush of enthusiasm. A feeling of anxious anticipation until the presidents would light the ceremonial torch and we would then unleash our fierce sense of community and our zeal to be better. Over the years, I have found that nothing brings this sense of fraternity and belonging quite like sports do.  

I believe that sports often transcend athleticism and provide a person with purpose. In those few days or weeks of training, I felt that I was working towards something beyond just me. I was part of something much greater; our team. From students cheering on slogans of encouragement from their pavilions as their peers ran across the lanes, the field became a space for growth where we all came together and bloomed as a community. It was days like Sports Day when we watched the fruit of our labor and discipline come to life. It taught us failure and the ability to brush it off and go onto the next event in life. It taught us that we were stronger than we might have thought and that you could complete that 800 meter sprint no matter how close your lungs felt to giving up. 

The Sports Day at the Academy is a celebration of that purpose, of that sense of kinship, and that collective strength we have, even if it may not feel like we do at times. It is a reinstallment of hope. Each year I spend at the Academy, I watch the tents get better, the house jerseys get cooler and the batons get shiner. But the spirit remains the same; full of zest and eagerness. I look forward to the next 10 years where students continue to carry on this legacy and that ceremonial torch of morale, solidarity, communal love.

Aarushi Dutt, Class of 2015