Shooting! All about guns, pellets,targets; a lonely sport where you try to beat yourself, like golf, you competeagainst yourself. When you win, it comes at a price, leaving you drained,mentally and physically, and few to appreciate.
But Abhinav Bindra loved thesport. He actually lived the sport; toiled to master it. The prize came in aglittering hue, an Olympic gold, to be treasured by Bindra, his family, and anation that had long prayed and dreamt. He made it a reality.
Bindra, 29, is the ultimatechampion with a wealth of international participation. Three Olympics, threeAsian Games, three Commonwealth Games, 48 World Cups…He is a much decoratedshooter: National champion at 17, World champion at 24 and an Olympic Goldmedallist at 26; Arjuna Award in 2000, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2001 andPadma Bhushan in 2009.
All this, and much more, iscaptivatingly documented in his just released autobiography "A Shot AtHistory". The book, exceptionally well-written by Rohit Brijnath, is a narration of what Bindra calls “My Obsessive Journey To Olympic Gold.”
Obsessive! No doubt. It reflects in his loneliness when preparing for the assault. “In a wider sense, my sport is a lonely sport, very individual, a lonely battle to the top. Only you know the mistakes you have made. Amidst the pressure you can't even count on anybody. You have to find that courage from within. It is a very lonely sport.” Shooting itself has an inherent loneliness. “It comes from travelling, often alone.”
An Olympic champion now, and a national icon, Bindra is an ideal sportsman who brings dignity to his vocation. Who, in his opinion, makes an ideal sportsman? “Someone very gifted for his art, someone who can achieve with the least amount of effort. When that happens, a sportsman performs smoothly, someone like (Roger) Federer. He is so wonderful to watch.”
Bindra's pursuit was nearly aborted in 2004 after Athens. He missed a medal owing to a technical fault of the flooring in the final arena. He was devastated for he felt he shot his best in that final and deserved a medal. But Bindra found support from the most trusted source. “My parents, they were most supportive. I wanted to leave, had lost the heart to compete. I was down. That's when they provided me the environment, spoke positively, did not allow me to give up. They had unflinching trust in my abilities.” So did his countless supporters.
What does it mean to be a champion of the world? “It means a lot to me, a lot. It's a huge, huge achievement, the most competitive reward in any sport. We did not have a world champion. In Colorado (where he pursued his education), every second person was a world champion. It was an environment of excellence, infectious, where you resonate with other people's success. When I was growing up, there were few successes in sport in India. I was the first world champion. I always knew there were barriers to be broken; there was a mystique about it which had to be unravelled.”
The slogan that literally kept staring at him in Colarado Springs was, “It is not every four years. It is every day”. It left a lasting impression on him and his approach towards excellence. Bindra possessed the motivation to get there, an incredible passion for shooting. He had a simple philosophy. “Beat it, get it. When I got it, it was tough in a certain way, but very, very satisfying.”
The affable Bindra, polite to a fault, had to make sacrifices. “Yes, I did. We all do. It is a matter of perspective. I was absolutely crazy. I made sacrifices but it never looked as if I was missing something. There was something to be gained every day. I never thought so deeply actually. The sacrifices were mere decisions within my lifestyle.” For him, shooting was everything; nothing else mattered.
In his book, Bindra decimates the system and officialdom. “The system hurts. I have tried highlighting it. Don't know if a sportsman can make a good administrator. There are many aspects involved in running a sport; managerial, technical, marketing. But administrators outside of sport can't make the decisions for the sportsman: better to have a former athlete, expert, than a politician to make those decisions. Sport has to be run professionally because there are intricacies involved and the work is precise…you have to have the right people if you are pursuing excellence in sport and I believe we have such people.”
The nation must have the ambition to have the best sports administrators, just as it wants best sportsmen. They are interlinked.
But he also firmly believes that the “environment” in India is not for sports. “We don't have sports culture in India. It needs to be developed; sport has to become a social activity, and not just a competitive activity.”
How does he look at shooting as a sport? “It is not a viable career option. That can happen only if you are a cricketer. Sport requires passionate pursuance for 12 years to achieve concrete results at the world level. Shooting, for whatever reasons, is not a spectator sport. When I started, 200 participated at the national level, now we have 3500. It may never become a sport for the masses but we need stronger programmes at the grassroots level.”
Few know Bindra loves cricket. “I would stay up the night to watch the Test matches (from the West Indies). I was obsessed with cricket. I don't watch much now. There's been an overdose of it. But I still follow cricket.” He was among the spectators at Lord's in 1996 when Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid made their Test debuts.
The distinguished shooter concludes, “I have enjoyed my journey, its ups and downs. The book allowed me to look back at my career. I wanted to share my experience so that others could benefit. There is nothing that you can't overcome with hard work. You have to have the will and faith to perform.”
“A Shot At History” does precisely that. It inspires you to chase your dream. And make it a reality! At the end of the book, you fall in love with shooting and the shooter. It is a must read for aspiring champions.
"The system hurts. I have tried highlighting it…There are many aspects involved in running a sport: managerial, technical, marketing. But administrators outside of sport can't make the decisions for the sportsman; better to have a former athlete, expert, than a politician to make those decisions" - Bindra
Published - October 28, 2011 05:20 pm IST
