Anirban Lahiri protests that he “doesn't really belong anywhere”. “I grew up all over the country,” he shrugs. “Pune, Secunderabad, Roorkee, Rajasthan, north-eastern Bengal, Hyderabad – three years everywhere. It is what happens with us second-generation Army kids. Bangalore is home now, yes, but I don't have roots in any one place.”
It may have been only seven years ago that he moved to Bangalore. It is hard to recall the last time a golfer this promising – and even under five years into his professional career, one this accomplished – called Bangalore home.
No dearth of attention
Ever since the 24-year-old qualified for the British Open – a feat he has been at pains to emphasize is nothing extraordinary in itself – there has been no dearth of attention from the media.
Yet, through each press conference, as he appears in a tournament , the tone remains the same: assured but sober and understated, with nary a hint of self-importance.
“I don't think merely qualifying for the British Open is hitting the big time,” he says. “If I can come in the top 10 or 20, that would be remarkable.”
This level-headedness imputed to him, Lahiri feels, is a product of his forced independence from an early age.
“At the age of 13, I was taking trains from Hyderabad to Delhi. Imagine: I'd get off at the New Delhi railway station with a golf set, a suitcase and a backpack. I'd lug it across four platforms, get into a cab, and go to a friend's place to stay. “This was when mobile phones weren't easy to come by. My parents got me one only after a lot of tension – just so that I could stay in touch. Then I had to handle money. I couldn't have had an ATM card. If I was playing two or three weeks in a row, how much money could I possibly carry? Then you have to understand that you have ‘x' amount of money and you have to ration it and keep it safe so that you can sleep without worrying. Doing all that at the age of 13-14 is not easy. Because of that, I think I started maturing really early. It's not something that happened by choice and I could control, but it just happened. I'd like to believe that I try and stay as grounded as I can.”
With his father, Col. Tushar Lahiri, posted in Jamnagar and mother Navaneeta – a professor of English – away working in Hyderabad, Lahiri junior lives pretty much by himself in his Hebbal home; except in his line of work, home can be a rather nebulous concept. “I'm out travelling for close to 30 weeks in a year. All of us learn to accept it as something that we do.
“It looks very glamorous. You think ‘He's going to Singapore, Hong Kong, wherever…' but it's actually quite boring. You wake up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning. You get into the golf course a couple of hours before tee-off to warm up. Then you play, come back, and eat. Then you practise. In the evening you swim or relax or go to the gym and then try and fit in at least eight hours of sleep. There's a lot of discipline and routine.”
On tour, his best friend is his Mac, he jokes, “because all you have sometimes is that. My dad encourages me to read and I like to believe that I read a little bit. I used to read a lot more when I used to travel by train. I miss that to some extent.”
Outside of his computer, though, there are other friends that he meets as often as he can.
“It's critical to have a life away from golf,” he says. “It's very important not to be obsessed with the game. I try and do normal things that other young adults my age do nowadays. It's important we unwind.”
As Lahiri and other Indian pros have now demonstrated, it is possible to make a living out of golf – and a grand one at that. Prize money has grown exponentially in the last decade, as the sport has soared in profile.
Success can get very giddy, he agrees. “It's difficult. When a young guy bursts onto the scene and starts doing really well, he starts making a lot of money from making no money. You look at your bank account and you say, ‘Oh you know what, I didn't have anything a few years ago and look at me now.' He becomes a somebody because the media is after him, sponsors are after him. It happens all the time in cricket, to the power of hundred as compared to golf.
“It's important that whoever is doing well remembers his roots, understands where he comes from and all the work that has gone in – not just by him. If you do that you are likely to stay grounded and in touch with reality instead of flying off the handle. It's important to keep your ego in check because that can be your biggest enemy in sport.”
