Niranjan Mukundan wanted to quit competitive swimming after his first-ever race. It was a 50 metre butterfly race at a State-level meet in Bengaluru. The seven-year-old boy jumped into the pool, chopped the water hard and with his focus only on the finish line, swam. Upon touching the line, he looked back: there was no one. For a fleeting moment, he thought, ‘Did I just win the race?’ He looked around once more: He was all alone.
“I was so slow that the other swimmers had finished the race and left the pool,” he recalls.
He thought: This isn’t where I belong. Competitive swimming is not for me. Quitting is the best thing to do.
His coach John Christopher is a staunch believer of the dictum, ‘either you win or you learn’. He told Niranjan what thousands of coaches have told millions of pupils facing defeat: “Losing is a lesson, consider this as your stepping stone.”
This piece of advice might not be novel, but said by the right people at the right time, it succeeds in spurring a dispirited athlete.
Christopher knew that Niranjan’s swimming career just had a false start and that Niranjan had a long way ahead of him. He felt that his lad was special because “he can’t quit swimming, even if he wants to.”
Into the water
Niranjan was born with spina bifida (an underdeveloped spine). Till five, his lower body was paralysed. He was dependent on his parents for even inter-room movement. At PT period in school, he would watch his classmates play from his classroom window. When the class buzzed with year-end vacation plans, his friends would talk about Mysore, Hampi and Coorg, while Niranjan talked about hospital sessions.
“I spent every summer vacation in a hospital as I had to undergo surgery for my condition,” he says. (The number of surgeries he has undergone so far stands at 17.)
The doctors suggested his parents enrol little Niranjan in either horse-riding or swimming to improve his condition. The boy wasn’t fond of the beast, so water it was.
In the pool, it was magical. He could move. All by himself. A few splashes, was all it took. While able-bodied children in the pool in Jayanagar took 20 days to learn swimming, Niranjan needed just 10. He found water more fun than land.
Even when he was put in the shallow end of the pool, he’d swim to the deep end. Taking on challenges wasn’t an acquired trait for Niranjan, it was inborn.’
Crossing milestones
During a post-surgery break in 2017, Niranjan was forced to stay away from the pool. So, along with a childhood friend, he completed the Golden Quadrilateral challenge (covering Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata in a car) in 128 hours. When asked why he attempted the challenge, he says, “I’d read that someone had covered the cities in 130 hours. I thought I could better the record.”
A year ago, he hiked up to a cliff at Horseshoe Bend, a horseshoe-shaped meander of the Colorado River in Arizona, despite a few acquaintances suggesting the trek would be too difficult for him to complete.
For Niranjan, it isn’t about the smugness of proving someone wrong, it’s more about the delight derived from an accomplished challenge.
This has been the case since he was a boy. Neighbours and relatives advised his parents to safeguard him at home, but they enrolled him in swimming.
In 2003, at the age of nine, he clinched his first swimming medal (a silver) at a National-level meet in Mumbai. In another nine years, he was good enough to win a medal for his country at the German Swimming Championships. In 2014, at the Para Asian Games in Incheon, he got India a bronze medal in the 4 x 100 metres Relay Medley event. The next year was annus mirabilis . At the IWAS World Junior Games, he won seven gold medals and three silvers in the 10 events he participated in. The boy, who once couldn’t move from his bedroom to the living room, was near flawless on the pool.
Tokyo drift
Niranjan has been in fine form ahead of the Paralympics in Tokyo next year. He won his 50th international medal at the Norwegian swimming championships (Ado Cup), clinching five golds. In May, at the World Series 2019 in Brazil, he qualified for the world para swimming championships after winning a gold medal in 200 metres Individual Medley and a silver in 50 metres butterfly.
But, as has been the case throughout his life, before these successes were setbacks. At the Asian Para Games last September, a leg injury forced him to withdraw from the competition and head home for his 17th surgery.
“ But because of his condition, he can’t feel his legs and if there is an injury, we don’t realise it immediately,” says Christopher.
Niranjan himself was gutted to pull out of the event. “I had missed the last Paralympics, too, due to an injury. So, I really wanted to win a gold this time,” he says, “I know that I could have easily finished with a medal. I told my parents I I didn’t want to swim again after that.”
The next day, he rang up his coach to discuss his next training schedule. That is the thing: Niranjan never quits swimming. Even if he wants to.
