Poverty, parents’ deaths no hurdle for Tamil Nadu’ B Manikandan

MADURAI: For 16-year-old B Manikandan, the captain of the Tamil Nadu sub-junior rugby captain it was never an easy ride to success. The youngest son of casual labourer parents from a non-descript village in Villupuram district, tragedy struck Manikandan when he lost both of them in a span of five years.
A Class X student at a corporation school in Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai, Manikandan was the winning captain of the U-14 state rugby team that won gold in 2016 in Gujarat.He had also led the team to bronze the previous year. While his mother was not alive to witness both these victories, his father couldn’t leave his daily wage work to travel to revel at his son’s achievement.
On Sunday, Manikandan was among the best players for the state at the national junior rugby sevens championships that concluded in Madurai. Though the state team did not manage to make it to the podium, Manikandan sure did make heads turn with his skills.
When compared to his well-built teammates and counterparts from other states, Manikandan looks like a dwarf. “As they say, appearances are deceptive. He makes up for his small buildup with amazing agility, an important quality in rugby. He is still young. So, he has time on his side to catch up with the elder players,” Arul Venkatesan, coach of the Tamil Nadu junior rugby team said. Arul himself is an accomplished rugby player and is the only one from the state who is part of the Indian rugby team.
Arul says that while most of the players in his team come from impoverished backgrounds, Manikandan’s journey and his success so far would be good advertisement for the game in the state and can be a source of inspiration.
He moved out of the village to live with one of his sister’s family in Chennai when he was eight years old. He has three sisters and after the death of his mother, Indra, his father, Balakrishnan lived with one of his daughters in Villupuram. “I called him from Gujarat to tell when we won the sub-junior nationals. He sounded happy,” Manikandan recalled. His father committed suicide a few months later in 2017.
Rugby, which Manikandan got introduced to by chance four years ago, when he heard it for the first time, became an obsession from being a healthy distraction in a short time.
“I used to play kabaddi. Nithyanandam anna (brother) and his friends used to practice rugby at the Thiruvanmiyur beach every day. He was the one who inducted me into the game,” Manikandan said. And, there has been no looking back ever since as Manikandan has only moved from strength to strength in his game. As with every aspiring sportsperson, Manikandan’s aim is to break into the national team soon. But, there is one immediate aspect which he has to address, as agreed to unanimously by his coach and teammates. “I have to put on some weight,” Manikandan chuckled.