Hill kid archers aim high - Paril leads way to the bull’s eye

Kalimpong, March 23: Twenty-two students from different schools of Kalimpong are learning new skills in archery from Paril Lepcha at a training centre here.

The 17-year-old Paril was the first to put Kalimpong on the archery map of the country by her consistent performances in various age-group competitions both at the state and national-levels over the past five years.

The session at the Gorkha Archery Training Centre is on an extended run primarily because of the overwhelming response of the children. The programme that began on March 2 was originally planned to be a fortnight long, but the centre decided to extend it by another 15 days to enable the students to absorb the finer points of the sport. The archery is fast gaining in popularity among the youngsters in the Kalimpong subdivision.

“The sports and youth affairs department of the DGHC had agreed to sponsor the 15-day programme, but we decided to extend it at our own expense. The kids were very keen on having an extended run at the centre,” said Chujang Lepcha, the co-ordinator of the centre.

Though the trainees are using the traditional bamboo bows, they are being taught about modern rules of the game. “They are being given about two hours of intensive training on week days, and for a much longer duration at the weekends,” said Chujang.

The focus at the camp is more on shooting, though the children are being put through basic physical conditioning also. Paril said she was very impressed with the level of talent some of her trainees had. “These kids are very fast at grasping what we teach them. If they are given proper training with modern equipment, they can really go far,” she said.

Three of the trainees had participated in the recently held state-level sub-junior archery competition in Calcutta. Of the trio, Chom Tshering Lepcha, a student of Scottish University’s Mission Institution, has been selected to represent Bengal at the national-level competition beginning at Aurangabad in Maharashtra tomorrow. The other young archers said they, too, wanted to participate in the state and national-level competitions.

“Paril is my inspiration. I want to follow in her footsteps. I have learned a lot from the camp,” said Leezong Lepcha, a student of Saptashree Gyanpith who had also taken part in the Calcutta meet.

Like Chom and Leezong, the other 20 trainees are also under the age of 17.

Source: The Telegraph