By IANS
Agra : It’s not all work for merchants and shopkeepers of the Taj city. They also enjoy playing cricket, if the enthusiasm displayed at a recent tournament is anything to go by.
The Siya Ram Trophy, sponsored by the Agra Wholesale Cloth Merchants Association, was won by a team from the neighbourhood Roshan Mohalla, which defeated the Subhash Bazar team on Christmas day in the 20-20 cup tournament held for the first time in Agra.
Rajneesh Kakrania of the association said the event would be held on a bigger scale next year in view of the highly “encouraging response this year”.
T.N. Agrawal, president of the association, said: “Such enthusiasm for sports among businessmen has never been seen before.”
Sporting activities are the latest fad among businessmen in the city of the Taj Mahal. The younger set especially has been spending lots of time playing cricket.
Every Monday, which is a weekly business holiday in Agra, the shopkeepers of Rawat Para, Subhash Bazar and Kinari Bazar play the game at various grounds.
Regular tournaments are organised at the Balkeshwar ground for teams from different markets. These also attract a lot of enthusiasts who cheer their favourite stars.
Times have indeed changed. There was a time when pot-bellied businessmen slumped on their seats in shops. But businessmen are now health conscious and spend quite some time in socialising and following other pursuits, which was not the case till a few years ago.
Leisure time activities are a big draw, says Roshan Lal, a cloth merchant of Johri Bazar.
“In our days, a shopkeeper or a petty businessman could neither afford nor had the inclination to indulge in sports or other social activities,” said Moti Babu of Rawat Para market.
“The younger generation of businessmen is educated and has a wide range of interests. It is also better aware of the opportunities that come its way,” said Anurag, a third generation entrepreneur who manages a showroom for electronic items at Raja ki Mandi, a popular market in the city.
Earlier, the market committees organised a picnic once in a while, while the older set visited nearby Vrindavan for a quick pilgrimage.
A cricket match was a far cry those days, recalls Bankey Lal Maheshwari, a shopkeeper of Johri Bazaar. His sons now regularly practise and keep fit for the matches.
“They might be really fighting out rival competitors during business hours, but once on the field they are united in a common endeavour to win laurels for their bazaars,” says Sudhir Gupta, a local shopkeeper.
Indeed, it’s great fun to watch pot-bellied shopkeepers lustily cheering their teammates and clapping madly at every hit to the boundary. This change has come about because most of the younger shopkeepers and businessmen are educated, some with professional degrees.
“Consumer tastes have also changed and with the opening of the economy, the markets are flooded with all kinds of goods and gadgets, which the older set can neither comprehend nor operate,” explains Manohar Gidwani, a banker in Sanjay Place.