“I am a work in progress,” says badminton coach and former player Pullela Gopichand, speaking to The Hindu ahead of the launch of his autobiography Shuttler’s Flick: Making Every Match Count (Simon & Schuster publication). The book that he has co-authored with Priya Kumar will be unveiled in Hyderabad on November 12.
The seeds for the book were sown in 2016 when Gopichand served as the official Indian Olympic badminton team coach. P V Sindhu won her first Olympic silver at Rio: “I prefer to focus on the task at hand, rather than document my achievements. However, people around me felt it was the right time to tell my story,” he recalls.
- In 2001, Pullela Gopichand won the All England Open Badminton Championships at Birmingham, becoming the second Indian to win after Prakash Padukone in 1980.
- Gopichand was conferred the Arjuna Award in 1999, the Padma Shri in 2005 and Padma Bhushan in 2014.
- What they say
- Srikanth Kidambi : If you read this story, you will be inspired in moments of despair, where you won’t need anyone to console and lift you up.
- Saina Nehwal : He made sure that all those hardships that he had gone through in his career, were eliminated in our journey. We owe him the medals. We owe him the victory.
- P V Sindhu : He knows how to design the training for you. Everyone is on a different regime, one that is suited for their development and improvement.
- Subbravamma (Gopi’s mother): Badminton has kept our family united. We are all tuned into the same purpose. First it was to serve our son. Now it is to serve everyone our son serves.
- PVV Lakshmi (wife): Gopi’s comeback was a result of grit, resilience and persistence. He had three knee surgeries in six years.
Writer and motivational speaker Priya Kumar was recommended by a friend and the consensus among those who knew Gopichand closely was to put out an autobiography that can also serve as a guidebook for future champions. Shuttler’s Flick intersperses Gopichand’s story with Priya Kumar’s observations on his journey and lists pointers for aspiring players, parents and coaches. A bulk of the work happened in 2018 and 2019, with Priya Kumar meeting Gopichand’s family members, friends and colleagues at the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy.
Gopichand quotes a friend who urged him to tell his story: “He said, ‘thoughts are pregnant for a book’ and that I should write. I didn’t want it to be a preachy self-help book. Priya was exceptional in breaking down aspects of training, life lessons and listing them as takeaway points.”
Once the first draft was completed, the co-authors shared it with friends and also those who were not keen followers of the sport, to get an outsider perspective. Gopichand reflects, “I like how the book does not make for a heavy read. Each chapter serves as a mini- story with takeaways. We are at a stage where parents come to us with several questions about the sport. We wanted the book to address these aspects. The book evolved as we worked on it.”
Close-knit circle
Priya Kumar
Gopichand didn’t have to go too far to piece together the story, for, some of his close friends and colleagues are now part of the badminton academy: “I had a limited friends circle while growing up. I knew very little outside of badminton,” he mentions, “Hamid Hussain sir’s (his first coach) son Azam, who was my doubles partner in childhood, and Prabhakar who was my doubles partner as an 18-year-old, are at the academy. I also reached out to Sudheer Babu (former player and now actor) and others.”
The book opens with an account of Gopichand’s biggest win — the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001, and then recounts his recovery from a debilitating knee injury in the 1990s that required a risky arthroscopic surgery to treat an acute anterior cruciate ligament tear. Gopichand had been written off. No one thought he would be fit to play the sport, forget winning national and international championships.
“It was a painful period,” he admits. “There was no precedent for anyone having undergone such a reconstruction surgery and returning to play badminton.” The slow progress from the wheelchair to the badminton court involved tremendous grit: “Badminton was my only source of happiness. So I had to find my way back into it.”
He compares it to the contemporary scenario where players might move away after a few months of the injury or a lean phase: “There was little else to distract us in the 1980s and the 90s. If I lost badly, I would withdraw into a shell and channel that hurt into devising a method to return stronger with a win. I don’t know if players today let the hurt linger enough. You can get distracted with Netflix or YouTube.”
That said, he doesn’t get judgmental about the change in scenario. While players have better access to formal training facilities today, there are other pressures: “I have seen players checking Instagram before and after a match. I won’t say it is wrong, for, even the top players in the world do it sometimes. It is a different way of life.”
Training them young
Shuttler’s Flick book cover
In his younger days, Gopichand played other sports before finding his groove in badminton. The experience helped build agility. At the academy, parents walk in to enroll young children in the sport, with an eye on international tournaments. How does a coach decipher if a child is cut out for badminton? “The Canadians used to conduct a DNA test and a muscle test to gauge if a child has the aptitude for a sport. This turned out to be detrimental and the practice was discontinued. In school, children learn mathematics, physics, chemistry and other subjects. Not everyone is expected to be an Albert Einstein or Srinivasa Ramanujam. But kids enrolling on a sport are told from day one that they should aim to be a world champion. That is way too much pressure. Encourage them to play a sport, enjoy the process, stay healthy, happy, become disciplined and learn lessons from winning and losing. Genes play an important part in making a sportsperson. We look at the generic body type and after a few months, we assess a player’s mobility, hand-eye coordination, whether he/she can spot vacant spaces on court and score, and whether the player can withstand the rigours of travel, and the ability to bounce back after losing repeatedly to the same players.”
The over-exposure and the parental tendency to get calculative about the lucrative nature of a sport is a dampener. “Such people tend to leave the sport midway,” says Gopichand. Recalling his growing years, he says, “A certain dumbness was required to get completely involved in a sport and think, ‘ haan mein khel raha hoon’ . Only a small percentage can ultimately win big tournaments. The lack of that knowledge, in a way, helped. On the bright side, I think today’s generation is more confident about achieving than the previous generation.”
Winning moments
HYDERABAD, TELANGANA, 07/08/2018: India's chief national coach Pullela Gopichand at his Academy in Hyderabad. Photo: K.V.S. Giri
Shuttler’s Flick , expectedly, has anecdotes from some of Gopichand’s brightest students — Saina Nehwal, P V Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap and Srikanth Kidambi, among others. They recount the disciplined practice and the winning moments. Gopichand avers that what happens on the big match day is a manifestation of the years of training; there are times he steps back to allow the players to have an easy mindset: “On the big day, there is nothing new that I tell them. Everyone wants to win, but how many have done the preparation that is required to win is all that matters.”
At 47, Gopichand abides by a disciplined lifestyle. Waking up at 4 a.m., he reaches the academy around 5 a.m. and often calls it a day only in the evening. The routine suits him, he explains: “Otherwise I tend to get lazy. A deviation in food and sleep affects me big time. The last two years, with minimum travel during the pandemic, suited me. I don’t get bored eating simple meals each day or sleeping at the appropriate time. However, my job as a coach requires me to travel and that is fine,” he says with a laugh.
Shuttler’s Flick also details the unflinching support from his parents Pullela Subhash Chandra and Pullela Subbaravamma, and later his wife and Olympian badminton player P V V Lakshmi. Gopichand reckons that he has been able to give his undivided attention to the sport thanks to the strong support system. While the book does not give away much about his wife, who prefers to maintain a low profile, Gopichand says, “We were so busy after we got married that we took a vacation only seven or eight years later. I would leave home by 4.15a.m., returning only by 7p.m. Lakshmi has stood by me like a rock, just like my parents. During her pregnancy and as a young mother of two children, she did everything she could. Having been an Olympian, she understands what it takes to be a player and a coach.”
A biopic film, with Sudheer Babu billed to portray Gopichand, is also on the cards: “There has been a delay due to the pandemic. The project is on and discussions are underway,” says Gopichand, as a parting shot.
