There is no single route from a school playing field to serious football. Arpit Chettri and Khanswrang Brahma are proof of that. Both are Sasonians, both grew up with sport as an important part of school life, and both have now played in one of Indian football's best-known tournaments, the Durand Cup. But almost everything about the roads they took to get there was different.
Arpit Chettri — leaving school for football, and finding his way back
Arpit joined St. Augustine's in UKG. Football came early, and so did the ambition to make more of it than a schoolboy pastime. While he was in Class 8, an opportunity arrived that few young footballers would have found easy to turn down: a move to Kolkata to join Atlético de Kolkata's Under-13 setup.
For a year he trained and played with ATK while continuing his schooling in Kolkata. Then came the disruption of the pandemic. His contract ended, he returned home, and the path that had looked fairly clear suddenly wasn't.
What followed is perhaps the less obvious part of Arpit's story. He decided that football and education had to be brought back together. In 2021 he returned to St. Augustine's in Class 11, after an unconventional period in which he had missed Classes 9 and 10 in the normal school sequence.
He completed Class XII at SAS in 2024. And football was waiting for him there too. Among the school memories he singles out are success in an Under-17 tournament in Kolkata and, at the other end of the emotional scale, a semi-final defeat to SUMI in Kalimpong's Independence Cup.
Beyond the school field
After Class XII, the game moved quickly. Arpit played for Coal India in the Calcutta Football League, where the side became Second Division champions. He represented West Bengal at the Under-20 Swami Vivekananda National Football Championship — an achievement he still regards as the most important of his career so far.
In 2024 he joined Mohammedan Sporting Club. Since then he has played in the Calcutta Football League Premier Division and appeared for the club in the Durand Cup and Super Cup. In the 2025 season he played 13 of 15 CFL matches, alongside appearances in the other competitions.
By 2026, his role had grown. He describes playing full matches in the Durand Cup fixtures in which he appeared, including against Army Red, and a sustained run in the CFL, with goals and assists and matches against some of Kolkata football's most familiar names, including Mohun Bagan and East Bengal.
Football has not meant abandoning education. Arpit is also pursuing a B.A. Honours degree in Sociology at Jadavpur University.
His next club objective is the I-League. The larger ambition is simpler to state and considerably harder to achieve: to wear India's blue jersey.
Khanswrang Brahma — from the Blue Coat to the Durand Cup
Khanswrang Brahma's route was different. His sporting identity was already firmly established while he was at St. Augustine's. Football was central, but so was basketball, and in 2018 the school recognised that wider sporting ability by awarding him the Blue Coat for Best Sportsperson.
There were victories to remember. His Independence Cup mini-team became champions after a 1–0 win over SUMI, with Khanswrang scoring the goal. He also remembers championship success at the school-level regional competitions in the Under-17 and Under-19 age groups.
He completed ICSE in 2019 and ISC in 2021. By then, sport was no longer merely something he did alongside his education. It was becoming part of the education itself.
A footballer across India
After school, Khanswrang enrolled in the four-year Bachelor of Physical Education programme at the Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education in Gwalior. He is now pursuing his Master of Physical Education at Lovely Professional University in Punjab.
Alongside those studies has been a remarkably itinerant football education. His playing journey has taken him through teams and clubs in Punjab, Kolkata, Assam, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh and the Northeast — including JCT Football Academy, Aryan Football Club, Bodoland FC, Singling SC, Lyons FC, Gyalshing United FC and Baarhongkha AC.
In 2026 he was with Namsai FC in Arunachal Pradesh. The achievement he places above the others so far is playing in the Durand Cup that year.
His ambition for the next stage is to reach one of the higher levels of India's national league structure. He puts the task plainly: “I know the journey won't be easy, but I am willing to work for it. My goal is clear: keep working until I earn my chance to play at the highest level.”
Two different roads
Put the two stories beside each other and the contrast is striking. Arpit left the conventional school route unusually early to chase football, returned to SAS, completed Class XII and then worked his way into senior football while continuing university studies. Khanswrang's path joined sport and education more continuously, taking him from the Blue Coat at SAS into formal physical-education training and a succession of clubs across India.
Yet both speak of St. Augustine's in much the same way.
For Arpit, the school provided tournaments, coaches, exposure and teachers willing to support the difficult balance between academics and sport. Khanswrang speaks of what school sport taught beyond technique: discipline, teamwork, confidence, focus and the ability to continue when winning was not guaranteed.
Perhaps that is the connection worth remembering. A school cannot determine where a young player's journey will end. It can, however, give him a field on which to begin, people who take his effort seriously, and enough room to discover how far he wants to go.
For these two Sasonians, the journey is still very much in progress. (This feature was developed from material shared by Youraj Chettri (“Rocky”), Class of 1987.)