Dear Friends,

It still feels like a dream!!  Hosting the FISU World University Squash Championship at Somaiya Vidyavihar University and winning 3 medals!!  Individual Gold and Bronze, and Team Silver.

14 countries - Brazil, People's Republic of China, Czechia, France, Hong Kong China, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and of course - India.

We are grateful to FISU to choose India and give us the opportunity to organise and host this event.  We are also grateful to the AIU for supporting us in this effort.  (https://www.fisu.net/)

Suraj Chand (member of team India and also our student) won the individual Gold.

Om Semwal (member of team India and also our student) won the individual Bronze.

Team India (Suraj, Om, Sandhesh, Pooja, Nirupama and Shamina) won the Silver medal.  

Three medals!!!

A few years ago, we did not have any Squash courts.    The Ekalavya complex is only a few years old.  (I have explained the creation of the Somaiya Sports Academy and the Ekalavya complex in an earlier email that can be accessed at https://president.somaiya.edu.in/en/view-communications-page/349).

Dreaming big, and dreaming bold.  Continuing to dream.

This is what sharing dreams is all about.  Each of us has a dream, and many of us share dreams.  My grandfather's dream, on seeing the Cornell facility at my graduation (when he was 90 years old) was that we should have something like that at Somaiya Vidyavihar.

He had wanted me to build at Somaiya Vidyavihar, the kind of University that I wanted to study at.  I had promised him, I would.  In some measure, this promise was kept today.  And it will continue to be kept.

I used to play competitive Squash at the University level for Cornell University in the USA, and later for the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.  We planned the facility and asked my father in law - Architect Jitendra Mistry to design this.  and this super facility came to be.

Dreams are shared by each of us.  We have our own dreams.  As Majrooh Sultanpuri wrote
"मैं अकेला ही चला था जानिब-ए-मंज़िल मगर, लोग साथ आते गए और कारवाँ बनता गया।"  

We had Aazaz Khan join as the Director of the Somaiya Sports Academy and he has added his dream to the mix.  Along with him, there are more than 100  coaches at the Somaiya Sports Academy, 10,000 Somaiya students who actively use the facility and more than 3,000 represent us in competitions outside representing us as team Somaiya (from all our campuses  and institutions).

Each player with a dream to play for his or her team, institution, district, division, state and country.  

Many who enter our institutions may have never had a chance to pick up a racket before, jump in a pool earlier.  This programme provides exposure to sport for recreation, as education, teamwork, for competition (competing with oneself and the other).  To play to win and also to learn how to lose gracefully.  For being healthy in mind and body.  As Yudhishtir replies to the Yaksha when he is asked - what is the greatest of all gains, and Yudhishtir replies - लाभानां श्रेय आरोग्यम् (Of all gains, the gain of good health is the greatest).

The poet Iqbal has written - 
ख़ुदी को कर बुलंद इतना कि हर तक़दीर से पहले, ख़ुदा बंदे से ख़ुद पूछे बता तेरी रज़ा क्या है ।

We will and are working towards building an institution that is proudly Indian, world class in teaching and research, global in the reach of its ideas and universal in its service.

Sports is an important part of that vision.

Last week, we made India proud.  By hosting a global event.  It was world class in execution and in performance.  It was done with teamwork.  The Somaiya Sports Academy, the University and Vidyavihar leadership, the cleaning crew, the referees, the volunteers, the coaches, the physiotherapists, the cafeteria, the contractors, the project office, and everyone in front and behind the scenes.  And who can forget - Team India and our students who were part of that team.

The dream is wider.  
We want to do this in other areas as well.   Other sports, other locations, and other areas of study.  We are completing the building Sanskruti - for the K J Somaiya Institute of Dharma Studies.  The building for Scientific research is under construction.  We have planned a building for medical education and more.  Providing infrastructure at scale, bringing in leadership, creating great teams,  and sharing dreams.

Congratulations and gratitude to all who helped make this happen.