Borrowed from SAMPADA old editions – for the 10th Anniversary Special Issue – Interviews section. This one is of Aravind Bhat,2001 Mech.
Aravind Bhat represented India for 13 years playing in all major events in the world. On the international level he has won 7 International title including the Scottish Open 2004, the Czech International 2007 and the 2014 German Open. We thank him for taking time from his schedule and giving us an opportunity to interview him. Our best wishes with him for all his future endeavours.
Team SAMPADA: What inspired you to get into the engineering field ?
Aravind: My brother who is 5 years older than me was a Electronics engineer from UVCE. He was my main inspiration.
TS: What are the memories about your participation in sports and college days?
Aravind : My main memories are that Badminton was an ice breaker for me to make friends with other class guys and girls. It also gave me an easier access to seniors as I was the best in Badminton in college. I also conducted Badminton tournaments and this helped me get in touch with many students and teachers. Some of the teachers loved Badminton and they would always ask for tips.
TS: How was the competition and encouragement in sports in those days?
Aravind : As I was the best and only professional Badminton player in college, I had no competition. In fact I was not even allowed to participate after the 2nd year. So I was mainly involved in tournament conducting. But obviously I was the captain for the college team. Encouragement was also great actually. Our HOD would allow me to skip classes and many of my teachers gave me attendance if I missed class due to tournaments. Internal marks was given liberally as I was a India level player. This was very important for me as I missed many classes. But at the same time my class mates were “Gems”. I had one friend called Adarsh who was also staying close to my house who would always help me with any of my doubts with combined studies.
TS: How important do you feel it is for students to balance sports along with academics or take part in sports?
Aravind : Good question. Even though you feel the time constraint by doing the extra curricular activities I would suggest everyone to do about 2 hours of sport seriously everyday. Why am I saying this? Due to experience I have understood that even though I had lesser time than others for studies, my study time was full of quality. I realised that I cannot waste time and had to concentrate and finish portions on a day to day basis. This helped me in time management, multi tasking ability and concentration and focus.
TS: What is your message to the budding engineers of our college?
Aravind : UVCE is great place. It has a lot of tradition which not many have in Karnataka. UVCE somehow has this Knack to bring the best out of students. Think only positively even though you guys might face hard ship sometimes. ALL THE BEST TO UVCEians!!
-Aravind Bhat, Sampada-75
