It was a sporting rivalry where one cheekily accused the other of snobbery, and in turn got told off for possessing just a pretty face. Then the two sets of boys went into a ruck, gallantly risked losing both—the stiff-necked highbrow and the drop-dead Greek God looks. What flourished was rugby in Kolkata. That was till the clean-cuts started disappearing from the scene, leaving the snobs to stare at the backs of secretly-respected rivals.There wasn’t much silverware up for grabs then, just pretty girls to impress. And as a 15-year-old, that counted as mighty important.While La Martiniere Old Boys (LMOB) maintains uppity authority over schools rugby in the eastern metropolis, the Armenians are back in action this year with a new crop, signalling the revival of Armenian rugby.How a group of boys who’ve never held the rugby ball back in Iran, Iraq or Armenia, came to Kolkata’s Armenian College and transformed themselves into a feared unit beats all scepticism.A history that can be traced back to 1890—when the Old Armenians Club kick-started rugby and carried it over to the college hosting Armenian children fleeing persecution in different parts of the world. And it continues to inspire as the team returns to where it belongs: in the centre of the mainstream. The first youngsters—all 7,8 year-olds and too young to play—arrived in 1999, a year after the Armenian seniors last won the All-India. Eight years on, they have grown up strong and sturdy.The National U-19 Rugby Sevens in its inaugural edition in Mumbai witnessed a fresh batch of Armenians lift the cup, and an apt summation came from national coach David Wiggins, who while only in his second week in India noted, “The important thing is how everyone was happy to watch them win. The Armenians are a special team.” Handed a rugby ball—alongside a sporting spread of hockey, football and cricket from Day 1 of school—the Armenians are known to pick rugby over the rest. Maybe rugby picks them, like in Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat at Hogwarts, though there’s no ceremony here, merely rough tackles.School coach David Purdy guesses that for a group of children wanting to desperately prove their worth, rugby is handy.Taking Armenian rugby to greater heights is Emil Vartazarian, India’s charismatic fullback, who graduated from school ranks and was part of the last batch that did duty for the Mayo Road club. A regular in the national team, he can claim to have made the most of his stay in India. “We seem to excel because of the physicality. Also we playing for clubs at 15-16, so we start thinking like adults,” he says.“The main thing is to instil control in them—because they are very physical. It’s a job to discipline them,” says Purdy.Playing with unique flair, the Armenian school boys picked their maiden U-19 national title—soon after beating an army side in a warm-up game in Kolkata.Recalling the last few days of the Armenian supremacy in early ‘90s, team-member Supratik Sen says, “The camaraderie’s huge. We’d sleep, eat, date, fight, have fun together and that showed on the pitch.” Rivals feared them, adds Sen—only the second Bengali to have played for the Armenians—the first being his uncle Col Dasgupta who played alongside the club’s legend Ashram Sookias.The rivalry between the affluent LMOB and the rugged Armenians might have started hotting up 70 years ago, but Sookias was immortalised after he had twenty stitches sew up his head after being kicked at during a game at Bombay Gymkhana in the ‘60s. Now 77 and president of the Armenian Club, he turns misty-eyed returning to the venue. “I didn’t know it would be so bad. I thought first-aid would do. But then the doctor examined it and packed me off to Breach Candy,” he says.Brother Malcolm Sookias captained the first Armenian team that won the Calcutta Cup in India’s independence year, while Ashram, a wing-forward in his heydays, was also mentor to younger sibling Haik, who became a legend in his own right.There is no dearth of fables at the Armenian campus—though little has wafted out of the four walls, owing to the community’s low-profile. Vahik even cracked a few walls to reach school-superstardom. “When playing a pass-and-touch game inside the hall, he would run straight into walls. The mortar would chip off, but he never hurt himself,” recalls Sen.It wasn’t all about muscle though. Another contemporary, Peter—a considerably smaller boy who played hooker, had in defiance of his size attained great skills with which he brought down Vahik and was made captain.Another legend was Fred Babakhanaian, who besides looking like Rambo, had also gained immense respect after fighting a war and coming back as coach. “He would make us train for four hours then jump into the pool, do swim laps and come out and train all over again. But we loved the rigours,” says Sen.Till date, the Armenian ruggers sniff at suggestions of working out in the gym, but can boast of supreme fitness. “We got into the game because we liked the toughness,” says current captain Armen Markarian. A flyhalf who aspires to become a pilot, Markarian (19) admits his friends waste little time in classes as chits are routinely passed around, enlisting for teams. Scrum leader Ejuien Ebubijuen (17) plays cricket so that running around wearing pads helps him build endurance. The preference for wild sport is hard to miss when he insists that with the ball in hand, only hitting a batsman or watching the stumps fly wouldn’t hold his interest.In fact, the Armenians had in their ranks a fast bowler who would bounce out batsmen at Kolkata’s cricket Mecca CC&FC and derive great pleasure from that. Henrik Terchoonian—Vartazarian’s teammate and the man who coached the cubs in their first year of revival, had done his bit to wipe out the fancy for cricket. And while there were no pretensions to line and length when he bowled, “everyone knew him to be a wild bugger,” Sen laughs.It’s not all smiles, though, for youngsters separated from families when very young. “They all have histories—cannon-fire, brothers with broken arms. They forget nothing, but don’t let it show. Rugby’s a huge outlet,” says Sen.Bitter rivalries have also been known to melt on the rugby field. As captain Markarian recalls, “We had 7 players from Iraq. The first few days, we used to fight a lot with them and those from Armenia. But then during a rugby game, we saw them being tackled by the opposite team. We couldn’t stand that our team-mates were being beaten up—so we went and defended them. Now we are brothers.”As a minority in almost all countries in the world, the Armenians know the feeling of being ‘ruled.’ They are ready for the sacrifice of forgoing a threatened upbringing with parents for the Kolkatan shelter. “They should be naturalised. They spend half their lives here, and one day they’re just asked to leave like foreigners. There’s so much they contribute to rugby that it doesn’t seem fair at all,” rues Sen.As a teenager, he would hang out with the Armenian bunch on Park Street at eateries and discos; the dapper colts never being charged a paisa. As someone privy to their aspirations now, Sen knows they’d love to stay back.On the field, the scrum leader Ebubijuen basks in the team’s first glory, post-revival. “This is the first title, so it’s special,” he wraps up, hinting at the grand return of the Armenians when the All-India championship travels to Kolkata in 2008.Till then, LMOB need to watch out.
