Fall from train costs pacer four fingers

The 14-year-old with a fast bowler’s frame has lost his main asset on the cricket field: four of the fingers on his bowling hand.

Shamik and his friend Sreejit Karmakar were allegedly pushed off a reserved train compartment overrun by ticketless travellers in Bihar on 6 August. The students of El-Bethel School in Thakurpukur were on their way home by Bagh Express after an excursion when the incident occurred.

Sreejit did not survive the fall. Shamik did, spending an entire night lying beside the tracks at Sonepur, 550km from Calcutta, with a broken left arm, broken neck and a bruised spine. He needed 56 stitches all over the body and was left with only the thumb on his right hand in place.

Four days ago, Shamik returned home to Barisha Purbapara from a Bhowanipore nursing home. The bed-ridden teenager isn’t sure if he would be able to learn how to write with his left hand and go to school again. But he is already resigned to not hurling a ball down the 22 yards again.

Shamik was the opening bowler for his school and the fastest among his peers at Barisha’s Naboday Sangha.

“I always wanted to be a fast bowler. But I can no longer grip the ball and bowl seam-up,” he said, looking out of the window at the local Purbapara ground. “Doctors have said that even after my fractured left arm heals, I can’t risk trying to bowl with it,” the Class IX student added.

Apart from bowling fast, Shamik used to be a hard-hitting batsman. “Since the incident, I have avoided watching cricket on TV. But it’s hard to shut out the screams of ‘howzat’ from the ground behind our house,” he said, fighting back tears.

“Two men saw us (Shamik and the lifeless Sreejit) and even called a policeman. But the cop advised them not to go anywhere near us because it involved a police case…. I groaned for help and some water but the cop shooed the duo away,” he recalled.

Shamik, who was a boarder at El-Bethel, now needs help to even drink a glass of water. Mother Mitali, a CESC employee, is his constant source of courage and support.

“It is a new beginning for him. He has to learn to write with his left hand…. He has to write his board exams in 2012,” said Mitali.

His mother’s resolve has rubbed off on the teenager, though he is still haunted by the nightmare of losing his friend Sreejit.

“I often cannot sleep at night. Sometimes, I see Sreejit calling me, his bones are exposed...,” Shamik said with a shudder. “Sreejit and me were very different but we shared a great rapport. I miss him.”

If Mitali is worried about one thing, it is the sudden change in her son’s behaviour. “He used to be very naughty at home, which is why we put him in the hostel (15km away). Now, it’s difficult to even make him speak. He has started reading the Sarat Rachanabali,” she said.

For Shamik, the immediate challenge is to make a new start, which he intends doing the moment doctors take off the bandages.

“I will fight back… I will succeed in life. If it’s not my right hand, I will use my left,” the teenager signed off.

But the one thing he will never do is run in full steam to hurl a bouncer.


Tamaghna Banerjee, The Telegraph