He was born on the day Jose Ramirez Barreto said goodbye to football. His father Sujon Mukherjee, a passionate Mohun Bagan fan, fondly called him ‘Barreto’. 

He is Ananyo Mukherjee, the 11-year-old boy who used to play both football and swimming in childhood. His father, a professional painter might be dreaming that his son would turn out a professional footballer as his elder brother Supal Mukherjee was a professional footballer, representing Kolkata’s premier clubs. Anonyo also got selected at the football camp in SAI Kolkata. 

But his uncle Supal observed Ananyo's passion for swimming and following his advice the boy finally developed into a swimmer. He started learning the game under Atanu Kundu at the Laketown Swimming Association pool and proved his mettle rapidly, progressing to an advanced training group within a couple of months to learn the game under the club’s most experienced coach Prabir Roy.

Today, Ananyo, within a year only since last September has proved himself as a 'prodigy' by winning the gold medal in 100-meter Bi-fins (butterfly style but the hands should kept straight forward) in the Fin swimming national championship held in Pune in September this year.

 Ananyo however already won 15 to 16 medals in the normal swimming in free-style and butterfly events in the club and district championships in the last year only. 

Fin swimming is technically tougher than normal swimming where the swimmers wearing fins on their legs exhibit 'under-water' swimming. The fin swimmers use a clip named 'snorkel' on their noses while swimming. 

Ananyo’s father explained, “The fin swimmers have to master the skill of keeping snorkels intact while swimming. Generally, the snorkels come out of the mouth when a swimmer dives into the water. If it happens then it can be fatal for any Fin swimmer as the water hits the lunges directly. But we are grateful to Prabir Roy’s mastery that all the Fin swimmers under his training including Ananyo have mastered the skill to swim with snorkels. Then in underwater swimming the water pressure is huge.”

Ananyo has indomitable mental strength. Otherwise, he could not have bounced back in the pool with the medals within only a year. The boy along with his parents suffered from a fatal motorbike accident in June. His body was beleaguered by severe damage. Still, the swimmer returned to the pool within only three weeks. 

His father revealed, “Ananyo was having terrible pain. The severe pain resulted high fever. Nobody hoped he would be able to return to the swimming pool this year. But I knew my son's mental strength. Simultaneously, I had great belief in the strength of a renowned company's supplement. He took the supplement and it helped him to recover fast. I also cannot forget my mother Maya Mukherjee who herself was a sportswoman and my wife Piyali Mukherjee's incredible contribution during that nightmarish period.” 

Ananyo learns playing synthesizer. He loves listening music. But regarding his immense psychological strength it can be presumed when the student of class six reminded that his inspiration is legendary swimmer Michael Phelps and he also gets motivation by watching the Bengali movie ‘Koni’, a novel based on a swimmer’s emergence written by legendary novelist Moti Nandi. 

Ananyo asserted, "I often see the life story of Michael Phelps. He also had to go through a lot of hardships and he overcame all the hurdles to win Olympics gold. In a similar fashio I get motivation whenever I see the movie 'Koni'. I feel motivated when I watch Koni’s teacher in the movie.” 

The sixth-standard student wants to continue both normal and fin swimming and he dreams of representing the country in the Olympics and winning medals like Phelps.