
On the morning of 19th June 2010, when the whole world was focussed on the on-going soccer world cup and associated festivities, we at Eastern Tigers, achieved a significant landmark of our own. On this day, the Honourable Consulate General of India in Johannesburg, Mr. Vikram Doraiswami, officially inaugurated our club.
It was a well conceived and executed function, which was graced by the presence of some eminent personalities from within the Indian expatriate community in Johannesburg.
The playing and non-playing members were decked in the official colours of
the club and sported the club track-suits with great elan. The Consulate
General handed over the playing shirts to each member and also to the
support staff. He praised our initiative and pepped us with gracious words
of encouragement, and mainly so for our motto of “Tiger Conservation”.
Mr. Doraiswami was also presented with the club colours in the form of a
playing shirt, as a token of his support and encouragement towards our
initiative.
The program started off with a recital of the poem, The Tiger (by William Blake), which was brilliantly done by Swastika Das, one of our young supporters. It was followed by a short presentation on Eastern Tigers per se and its long-time objective of contributing towards “Tiger Conservation” in the wild. During the function, the Eastern Tigers theme music was also unveiled, composed for us by Mr. Ashok (Balu) Dutta, a luminary in the music world who has graced the South African shores quite often with his performances.
Then the dias was occupied by the Consulate General, our Cricket Coach and Chairman, Mr. Saugata Das and our Cricket Captain, Mr. Vimal Sharma.

After Mr. Doraiswami concluded his message to the audience, he officially inaugurated the club, “Eastern Tigers”. It was followed by the handing over of the playing shirts to the members, and was followed by the vote of thanks by Saugata and culminated with some great group photographs.
The assembled guests also enjoyed some light Indian snacks and savouries. With the official inauguration on this day, we now look forward to do some meaningful work with respect to the “Save Our Tigers” initiative and also play some competitive cricket with local clubs and cricket councils.