As captain of the junior Maharashtra basketball team, 18-year-old Darayus Dinshaw Mehta played in the nationals at Chittor in Andhra Pradesh in June 2004. "I had been chosen captain the previous year too, but I could not go (for the coaching camp and tournament) as my Std XI exams were at the same time,” he explains. Just before his appointment (as captain) this year the Jai Hind College student had savored more good news — his 96 percent in PCM (physics, chemistry, mathematics) at the Higher Secondary Certificate examination. June was truly a great month, he laughs.
"When you step on court for a match, it gives you an amazing feeling. If you’re known to be a good player, spectators talk about you, they think you can’t hear them but you can! The opponents are wary of your skills. If the match is good, the thought remains with you much after; when you fail, fail, fail and then come back, it’s the kind of fantastic feeling you won’t get anywhere else,” the lad enthuses, recalling his last under-16 tournament when, playing for Wellingdon YMCA he averaged 29 points in the under-16 and 28 points in under-18.
Mehta had earlier played in the 18th Youth National Basketball Championship in Indore, Madhya Pradesh in 2001, the 53rd Junior National Basketball Championship in Panaji, Goa in 2002 and the 54th Junior National Basketball Championship in Ludhiana, Punjab in 2003, where the team obtained a certificate of merit for a fourth place finish. At 5 ft 9 in, Mehta is among the shortest players. "You have to be at least 6 ft if you want to continue to play at national level,” he says, adding that the Punjab team (who have been at the top for several years) have "really big Sardars” as their players.
"The main reason we Indians get overpowered (in sport) at the international level is because we just don’t have the body. A tall, big-built body is a tremendous asset. You may workout, practice, strengthen your muscles, but it doesn’t really help beyond a certain point,” Mehta believes.
Darayus Mehta (top right) with team mates and parents Pansy and Dinshaw and (below) on target
Progressing from school team to club, state and national team, Mehta comments on the odds one has to tackle: "Players often play solo at state level, hoping they will be noticed and will be selected for the national team.” Facilities at venues for state level tournaments are poor ("a lot of torture,” he quips), coaches keep changing as they are appointed from different districts, and a player’s future is often determined by the whimsicality of coaches who may decide after watching a brief on-court encounter whether they like you or not! "Being chosen captain for a national tournament is the highest point reached. I am completely satisfied,” he asserts.
"My family — parents Dinshaw (who is a trustee of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet) and Pansy and brothers Viraf and Hormuz have been great,” Darayus commends. "They have never pushed me to study, like other parents do, or made me give up on my basketball. They have left it to me to make my own choices and as a matter of fact I have been able to manage both quite well.” Darayus is currently in his first year of chemical engineering at the D. J. Sanghvi College of Engineering at Vile Parle. Viraf plays rugby for the Bombay Gymkhana team (see "A sporting salute,” Parsiana, November 2003) and is currently out of commission with a broken arm!
It was as a fifth standard student at St Mary’s that Mehta’s talent was spotted by the school coach. "He drew out the best in me, encouraging me to push myself a little harder with the words ‘if you are second best, you can be the best,’” the teenager recalls. "St Mary’s Darayus Mehta, who scored a whopping 22 points, showed great skill and a knack of easing past St Pius’ defence,” wrote the Mid-Day of December 5, 2000 of St Mary’s crushing victory over St Pius in the Colgate-Mumbai School Sports Association Inter-School Basketball Tournament.
Mehta terms the Bombay YMCA Open Basketball Tournament his "most memorable” so far. With two of the three "really good players” not able to play, "nobody expected us to reach anywhere. Yet we made it all the way to the finals.” Wrote the Asian Age correspondent in a despatch of January 4, 2003 about the final: "Despite Wellingdon YMCA’s defeat, captain and all-rounder Darayus Mehta stood ahead of the rest with accurate shooting of the ball and excellent defence.”