Mahalakshmi Badminton Club: Two decades of driving blood donations

Members of Mahalakshmi Badminton Club

On October 6, members of the Mahalakshmi Badminton Club (MBC) will celebrate an achievement that lies off the court: organising blood donation drives for over two decades. On the day, yet another blood drive (plus a free health check-up) would be organised, this time at Vani Mahal in T. Nagar.

This social initiative was born in the early 2000s when badminton enthusiasts in T. Nagar and West Mambalam, who would gather at the badminton court attached to the house of T.K. Raghunathan and Chitra Raghunathan in Mahalakshmi Street, decided in favour of it.

Initially, MBC organised a blood donation drive two times in a year — in April/May and October — and the collected blood would be given to Jeevan Blood Bank. Later, Voluntary Health Service in Taramani became the beneficiary. Most drives yielded more than 60 units of blood.

Later, MBC widened the focus of this social intervention by encouraging people to pledge their eyes, and celebrate Deepavali meaningfully by making a donation to orphanages in and around Chennai.

Through the MBC network, more than 100 pairs of eyes have been donated in these two decades to Rajan Eye Care.

Snapshots of matches played at the badminton court on Mahalakshmi Street

“In the early years, my house was the venue for any gathering including the Deepavali get-together (to benefit underprivileged children) typically held a week before the festival,” says 80-year-old T.K. Raghunathan, MBC president. When the number of beneficiaries rose to 100, the celebration was moved to a kalyana mandapam. With the count increasing further, the Infosys Hall at Sri Ramakrishna Matriculation School became the venue. Fun-filled activities would be capped off with a sumptuous lunch. Popular singers are invited to entertain the children, and new clothes and gifts are given. Before Deepavali, members and their families shop at showrooms to select clothes, sort and pack them into boxes.

“With every passing year, this initiative has only gained in strength. We currently have more than 350 children from four NGOs in Red Hills, Madurantakam, Sriperumbudur and T.Nagar as beneficiaries,” says Raghunathan.

For many years, Raghunathan’s house was the venue for a badminton tournament held every Pongal, open to children and adults from the neighbourhood. All aspiring players got a platform to showcase their talent and winners received cash prizes.

“The neighbourhood badminton tournament was literally a festival with floodlights and matches lined up from 5 a.m. to noon and again starting at 4 p.m. and extending until late in the night. In 2018, we had 400 participants, one of our highest enrolments,” recalls S. Vishwanathan, another active member of the Club.

With pandemic and the house being modified, no matches are played at the house but the event served as a platform for encouraging talent.

Vishwanathan says they are happy that many of the children have gone on to play at the district and state level.

MBC still remains an informal club and its 20-odd members, who are aged between 60 and 80 years, are happy to be silently serving society.

Do the members continue to play badminton? “Yes, but we play at different places,” says Vishwanathan, secretary, MBC.

The Governor’s rolling shield in 2005 for donating maximum units of blood is one of the best recognitions it has received till date.

The members are also happy that they have been able to sustain all these activities without any external funding. “We spend close to ₹5 lakh a year for all our initiatives but we do not ask for money, our friends and relatives do contribute in a big way,” says Raghunathan, who is honorary secretary, Sri Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha.