CHENNAI: There is a famous saying that sports do not build character, they just reveal it. And three childhood friends took it seriously, and began an initiative ‘Get Fit’ to change the societal perception to sports in the country. Somdev Devvarman, one of India’s best singles tennis player in the last two decades, Arun Karthik, an IIM graduate and instrumental in conceptualising ISL (Indian Super League) and Vikram Menon, a junior level national level tennis champion and a renowned tennis coach, got together one day and decided to develop the poorly maintained ‘physical education’ curriculum of schools across the state.
In the city to participate in the Blisscatchers event curated by AVIS Vishwanathan, Arun and Vikram speak to CE about their dream and their future plans. “We’ve been friends since childhood. We played tennis together those days. Then life happened and we went our separate ways. I had this idea of grassroot development of sports perimeter in the city. Then, one day Vikram and Somdev approached me with something similar and then we started adding flesh to the skeleton,” recalls Arun.
They wanted to take advantage of India’s negligence of sports. “So we provide a well-trained physical education instructor who is fully equipped with whatever is needed for coaching to a school. We also frame the entire PE curriculum of the school,” explains Vikram. “I tried coaching for a while, but health issues curbed my pursuit. But I don’t regret it since I am a part of this team that is trying to make sports accessible to everyone...at the grassroot level.”
Get Fit, which now runs in seven cities, has 55 schools under its supervision. It also has over 60,000 students training under their instructors. “We are planning to start our first centre in Mumbai next month since we started to get calls from the maximum city,” says Vikram.
It has a pro bono facility called ‘Life is a Ball’ where they coordinate with the government and send their trainers to government schools and take care of the curriculum — free of cost. What began with just 12 kids has grown into 12,000 students training under them from both Tamil Nadu and Telengana. “The number of pro bonos we take depends on the amount we generate from the ‘get Fit’ programme, which is offered to private schools,” explains Arun.
Apart from training kids, the initiative organises events to make the crowd understand the importance of sports in developing a person’s character and the value of healthy competition to future. What was the main challenge they faced when they began in 2013? “No funds or family support, and changing the mindset of people about sports. The latter is still a challenge. People still consider it as a distraction. Thankfully, it is slowly changing but still, we have to dilute this perception and that is our motto. Our next goal is to take our idea and make it a national initiative,” opines Vikram.
11 schools in Chennai
The firm centres in Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vishakapattanam, Tirupathi and Coimbatore. They operate in 11 schools in Chennai.
Vikram Menon & Arun Karthik will speak at ‘Bliss Catchers’ today at 7 pm, hosted by Avis Viswanath at Odyssey, Adyar. For details, call 24453191