ADVANCING THE RUGBY BALL, ARMENIAN STYLE
Rajdeep Datta Roy

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Feb 19 2009
India

The Indian under-19 Rugby team is predominantly made up of Armenian
boys, mostly from Kolkata’s Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy

Kolkata: On a balmy winter afternoon, Ejmin Shahjani and Armen
Makarian, along with a dozen other rugby players, are searing the
turf at Kolkata’s Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy. Though
the rugby season, which starts in June, is still a few months away,
the players have already started preparations.

After all, they have an enviable record to live up to. "In last year’s
side, 12 of the 15 players who represented India at the under-19 level
were Armenians," says Shahjani, an Iranian, who captained the Indian
junior team in international matches at Brunei. "The Indian under-19
side is predominantly made up of Armenian boys," says David Purdy,
coach of the Armenian Sports Club rugby team, which consists largely
of students from the college.

Dominating performance: Armenian College and Philanthropic
Academy’s students at their central Kolkata campus. Last year, 12
of the 15 players who represented India at the under-19 level were
Armenians. Indranil Bhoumik / MintThe Armenian boys, who have, in
the past, beaten older teams such as Bombay Gymkhana, Kolkata Police
and Maharashtra Police, aim to keep the momentum going. "Just you
watch, we’ll do even better this year," says Makarian, the school
games captain.

Though the students at the college play a number of games such as
football, basketball and volleyball, rugby is most popular.

"I don’t know what it is, but within days of coming here, they are
bitten by the rugby virus," says Father Oshagan Gulgulian, the pastor
and manager of the college. Pointing to the pint-sized Varos Boyajian,
Gulgulian says, "That boy is barely 12, studies in class I and arrived
only some months back, but is already showing signs of becoming a
great player some day."

Rugby is an integral part of the 188-year-old Armenian College, which,
along with the Davidian Girls’ School in Kolkata, provides quality
education and a chance to live a better life for 87 Armenian boys
and girls, who have come from countries such as Iraq, Iran and the
former Soviet republic of Armenia.

Razmeeg Suren, for instance, saw many of his friends die before his
eyes on the strife-torn streets of Baghdad. "I lost count…they
were so many," says the 14-year-old ethnic Armenian, his voice
trailing off. Suren and five of his friends, manoeuvred out of Iraq
by Gulgulian, now live and study in Kolkata.

"I have escorted students from Iran also, prior to this," says
Gulgulian, an American citizen, who was sent to the institution by
the Holy Etchmiadzin–the equivalent of the Vatican for Armenian
Christians. Gulgulian wants to increase the number of students at his
college to 300, and is confident that neither funds nor infrastructure
would come in the way.

Though called Armenian College, it’s actually a school affiliated to
the Council for The Indian School Certificate Examinations. The medium
of instruction is English, and alongside the usual subjects, the school
teaches the Armenian language–which has its own script–literature,
culture and religion.

Photograph: Indranil Bhoumik / Mint"We give these boys and girls a
decent education, a good environment to live in and a fighting chance
at life, and we don’t charge a penny for that," says Gulgulian. There
used to be a similar school in Lebanon, but, according to Gulgulian,
it doesn’t exist any more. Apart from free education, the students
also get a free trip home every three years.

While there are many versions as to when the Armenians came to India,
the arrival of an Armenian merchant Tomas Cana on the Malabar coast
in AD 780 is widely accepted as the first date. "So, we were here much
before the British arrived," says Sunil Sobti, member of the Armenian
Church committee, adding, "In fact, one of the wives of Akbar, Mariam,
was an Armenian."

In Kolkata, their business interests ranged from jute to hotels,
to shellac to real estate. One Astvatsatoor Mooradkhan, an Armenian
trader, had mooted the idea of starting a school for the community
and had made a princely contribution of Rs8,000 through his will as
early as in 1707.

Funded by trusts and endowments from the Armenian Church, the
Davidian Girls’ School and the college itself, the Armenian College
was eventually founded in 1821. It was then called the Armenian
Philanthropic Academy. Four years later, another school that was
founded by Aratoon Kaloos, a rich Armenian trader in Kolkata, was
merged with the Academy.

By 1850, the fund started by Mooradkhan had swelled with contributions
from other Armenian businessmen to Rs2 lakh. The college’s present
campus on Free School Street in central Kolkata, where British novelist
William Makepeace Thackeray was born, was bought in 1884. A college
was added in 1888, and it was affiliated to the University of Calcutta,
but was discontinued after a few years.

Money isn’t a problem for the college authorities and the amenities are
testimony to that–a spanking new launderette, a mechanized kitchen,
clean and airy dormitories, a state-of-the-art infirmary and an indoor
swimming pool speak of the college’s opulence. "We are planning to
construct a multi-level sports complex soon," says Gulgulian.

According to Purdy, the Armenians were the first to field a non-British
rugby team at least 135 years ago, but the community has shrunk over
the years, and its rugby team now is made up mostly of students from
abroad. "In those days, as there were more Armenians, we had two teams,
but since the 1960s, there’s only the Armenian Sports Club and that
side is made up entirely of boys from the college," says Purdy.

Most of the wealthy Armenian families such as the Galstauns,
Arathoons, Apcars and Sookias have migrated to the West, but many of
them continue to support the college in Kolkata, which offers a safe
haven to hundreds of Armenian children from strife and persecution.