When you think of Lucknow, two things come to mind instantlyone tehzeeb and two, mehmaan nawazi. This uniqueness of the people is quoted in verses and chapters and the city’s historical value and its culture is as popular as the intricate chiken work the hand-weavers’ do on a sari or a salwar that women wear so fondly or the kebab stalls that people from far off places flock to. All these may or may not have any link to one another.

Yet, Lucknow cannot, but be remembered for its mehmaan nawazi. So it was not a surprise when the Uttar Pradesh Table Tennis Association (UPTTA), which is playing hosts to the 73rd Senior National and Inter-State Table Tennis Championships, went out of the way to make the event not only a unique one in more ways than one, but also provide some entertainment value by painting a carnival picture to the newest venuethe Sports Authority of India sub-centre-near the airport.

The specially erected façade and the freshly laid walkways, leading up to the sub-centre hall, gives a special look and the pandal with excellent seating arrangement for the players and officials to eat makes people comfortable and, above all, the lighting right from the main gate to the hall presents an atmosphere of grandeur. If you thought this is the only special thing about this meet, please have a deep breath. The hosts, generally, provide buses for the players and officials to travel to the venue except in a few cases. But, as a first of its kind, the UPTTA has allotted each teamthere are 34 of them competing herean eight-seater and the teams are free to travel to and fro whenever they wished.

This is something all the teams have welcomed with both hands as it gives them freedom to plan their trips to the venue and back to the hotel without disturbing some players’ well-deserved sleep after a toiling session. In fact, all the team members from north to south, east to west, when they landed at Lucknow, they were assembled at the famous Bengali Clubone of the oldest in India with a history behind itand given a warm welcome. To their surprise, all the vehicles had their team stickers on the windscreen and the team manager was called and handed over charge of the car.

THE FACE OF UPTTA

Now all this could not have been possible but for one manthe dynamic Prabhat C. Chaturvedi, the president of UPTTA. The retired IAS officer, who was Labour Secretary at the Centre, has taken a path-breaking step in organizing the event in a grand manner which is difficult for others to emulate. Nevertheless, he has shown the path with his organizing skills and raising money to conduct a tournament of this magnitude.

In fact, Chaturvedi and his associates in UPTTA had just took four months to choose a venue to conduct the nationals after the earlier planned venuethe UP Badminton Academy hallwas refused for some reasons. With his clout, Chaturvedi overcame the problems so quickly and thanks to his team, led by general-secretary Arun Kumar Banerjee, which executed everything according to a plan. The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) too pitched in to speak to SAI authorities and with everyone working in tandem the nationals are now heading towards a great success.

But only UPTTA could have done such a great job, particularly after having hosted successfully the Asian Championships in Lucknow just two years back. No association would have even thought of hosting another major event in such a quick time. But UPTTA bid to host it last January at the TTFI’s AGM. And, without a doubt, it has delivered.