Village bridges rural-urban gap with passion for card game
VARANASI: Raibidpura, a nondescript village in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone district, is one of its kind in the country.
It is the only village where farmers play bridge, a card game of the urban elite.
And it is common to see even their children engrossed in the game, which is as much a passion in Raibidpura as cricket is in the rest of India and football in Europe.
With every household having a bridge player, it is no wonder that the children of Raibidpura have won many national bridge championships.
Now, 50 boys and 22 girls of the village are participating in the junior category of the ongoing inter-state bridge championship at Benaras Club here.
These children - Chetna, Krishna, Radhika, Shivani, Ram Krishna, Anurag, Hari Om, Satyam, Mohit, Akshay, Udit, Ritesh and Shivam -are in the age group of seven to 13 years.
“The entire village started preparing for this tournament months ago. When we come home from school, we have only one thing in mind - practise bridge and bring laurels to Raibidpura,” Sheetal says.
Raibidpura’s journey to becoming the only bridge playing village in the country began in 1965 when Mohammad Zia Khan, a veterinarian and a bridge lover, was posted to the village. Much to his dismay, he found there was no one he could play the game with at the hamlet. He hit upon an idea to produce other players. Soon, he started teaching the game to the rural folk. Mansaran Pipaldia, an illiterate farmer, was among his favourite students.
Gradually, Pipaldia became a master bridge player and accompanied Khan to national tournaments.
Amresh Deshpandey, a teacher and a bridge player from Pune, also made a major contribution. When he came to know about the village’s love for bridge through the internet, he visited Raibidpura last year and taught the finer points of the game to children. As word about the rural settlement’s uniqueness spread, other bridge lovers across the country contributed financially to provide more facilities in the village to promote the game. Now, the village has a Kisan Bridge Club where children regularly practise the game for hours at a stretch. Dev Dash Sharma, a local teacher and a bridge player, is the village team’s coach. “Farmers in Raibidpura encourage their children to play bridge. Every child in Raibidpura aspires to be a bridge player, and not a cricketer,” Sharma says. The Bridge Federation of India also organised a workshop on Friday to teach the nuances of the game to young players of Raibidpura.
Who knows, one day India might have a national bridge champion from Raibidpura.