It's not cricket, many may grumble. But when Tejaswi Prasad Yadav, the younger son of the RJD president Laloo Prasad Yadav, jauntily walked up to his Chief Minister mother Rabri Devi at the imposing stage of the Srikrishna Memorial Hall in Patna on Friday to receive the 'Khel Kirti' samman, Bihar's highest sports award, the entire auditorium burst into loud applause.
The 12-year-old Tejaswi, a student of Delhi Public School, R K Puram, shared the honours with Krishna Kumar Sharma (athletics), a discus throw gold medallist at the National Games in Hyderabad last year -- the first for the state after its bifurcation, and Babar Arafat, who brought laurels to the country, bagging gold medals in the 100 metres walk and softball throw at the Special Olympic Games in Dublin.
The son of Bihar's first couple is the youngest recipient of the state's top sports award, conferred by the state's art, culture and youth ministry for distinguished peformances in the field of sport.
However, Tejaswi has little to show for the award. His bio-data, released by the ministry, says he represented the DPS in inter-school cricket and participated in some undisclosed school level trournaments in England and the US. He also represented Bihar in the under-12 K.D Singh Babu hockey tournament in Lucknow and under-15 throwball championship in Bangalore. But there are no details about his performances in the tournaments mentioned.
Tejaswi, however, was quick to donate the Rs 51,000 that came with the award to the Chief Minister's Fund, towards extending help to poor sportspersons.
