Broken Arrow

It was a short walk from there to a space beyond the national consciousness yet, sad as it was for the man and the sport — he was then only 25, at his peak — it fitted his folk-hero image to a T. Today, India’s finest archer tries to recapture the ground he lost; he’s made his way back into the national team and is taking part in the World Championships in New York. To appreciate fully what he’s trying, it’s necessary to go back in time.

Archery had always been a fringe sport in India but in the late 1980s, the time Limba appeared, a number of archers were making waves. None, though, like the tribal from Saradit, near Udaipur, in Rajasthan who’d been spotted knocking birds off their perches from 50-60 metres with his indigenous bamboo bow and reed arrows.

He was picked up by the Sports Authority of India in 1987 and began his domination of the sport (see timeline below) that same year at the nationals. Two years later he was runner-up in the Asian Cup and led India to the team gold.

Just five years after he’d switched from bamboo and reed to the hi-tech of modern toxophily, Limba Ram equalled the world record over 30m at the Asian Championships in China.

Think Lagaan set in the 20th century and you get an idea of the paradigm jump.

A star was born. Gold medals at the nationals became a habit, as was his top position in the Indian team. What made him so good? His unwavering concentration and focus, for one.

Also, the years of shooting with primitive implements actually made it easier for him to use the sophisticated fibre-glass ‘machines’.

His relative failure at consecutive Olympics was overlooked; in those days of cricketing gloom, with Sachin still a gonnabe, sport needed a hero. Limba, of the easy smile and cheery disposition, fit the bill. He was 25 and had the world at his feet.

And then, one fine day in mid-1996, that world changed. Playing football at a training camp in Kolkata, he was injured in the shoulder. ‘‘Though I didn’t realise it just then, the pain became unbearable and I couldn’t string my bow.’’

The downslide was slow but steady. The man they said would bring back gold to India from the Olympics lost three consecutive nationals, cricket reclaimed its space in the public mind, hockey spawned the next folk-hero and Limba Ram was history.

The disintegration was as much mental as physical: loss of concentration, hypochondria, depression. ‘‘I lost my confidence completely. I used to pride myself on my concentration, but I found that I couldn’t concentrate at all. I developed a series of illnesses at the time, which continued till very recently, including a severe, blinding pain in my brain. This continued for five years. No doctor could figure what exactly the problem was.’’

The problem was simple, says Rathin Datta, India’s only international archery judge and someone who’s observed the rise and fall of Limba Ram. ‘‘He came from a very small village and was suddenly exposed to a whole new world. He became big and the media, the federation, everyone hounded him, and, I would say, used him. He was hyped beyond imagination. And that’s how he lost control. One day he was king. He was winning everything. But the moment he lost the first tournament, he was totally broken. He just couldn’t figure what had gone wrong. He lost control completely.’’

Limba’s own explanation is less eloquent but makes the same point: ‘‘I always took my focus, my concentration for granted. I never planned for a day when they’d fail me. When they did, I couldn’t do anything.’’

He did, actually. He went to sadhus, he went to peers, he took what Archery Association of India president VK Malhotra calls ‘‘jaadu-tona’’.

Yet the AAI, which could and should have helped him, didn’t. ‘‘The federation should have helped him at the time, because he was a serious medal hope for India’’, says Datta. And his contemporary Sanjeev Singh, the current national coach, says, ‘‘he needed guidance’’.

Malhotra today blames Limba for landing in the rut he did. ‘‘Believe me, we did all we could. But his problem was entirely psychological and he refused all the help we could provide him with. We wanted to treat him, because after all, he was a major athlete. But he preferred to use his jaadu-tona to treat all the health and other problems he had. When we wanted to help him, he fought and refused our help.’’ Limba, while admitting his own frailties, blames ‘‘them’’ — but refrains from naming names. ‘‘They wanted to knock me out of archery and didn’t want me to compete anymore. And I didn’t have many people supporting me.’’

Things got worse. He left his job with Hindustan Zinc in 1996 to join the Tatas in Jamshedpur; within three years, as he disintegrated, he was asked to leave. From there on, ‘‘I was in a big financial mess. Of course, I come from a poor background, so I was used to some poverty. But it was difficult nevertheless. And no one wanted me because I wasn’t performing well.’’

The reason for that, says Malhotra, was that, ‘‘along with all his other problems, he became very indisciplined and felt persecuted all the time. That was one of the reasons no one wanted him.’’

But someone did. Let down by his guardians, Limba turned to God. In 2001, he met Father Benjamin Dodiya of Udaipur, who convinced him to convert to Christianity. Fr Dodiya convinced him that the problem lay in his mind and nowhere else. And to get over it, all he needed to do was ‘‘fight the feeling of helplessness’’. ‘‘The padre gave me the power to heal myself, and also heal others. That’s how I got better. I could touch people and cure them. But then their illnesses started coming to me. And that’s why I left the faith and came back (away from Christianity).’’

By then, though, he’d recovered his confidence somewhat. He started taking diksha from a priest at the Guru Gorakhnath Mandir. ‘‘Very slowly, only about a year back, I could start concentrating properly again and shooting right.’’

‘‘I recently shot 1296. And have been regularly hitting 1290 out of 1440. I think 1300 should be good enough to qualify for the Olympics. I have all my hopes pinned on the next few days. God will take me there. I have to go to the Olympics.’’

There’s a long way to go for that. Conventional wisdom and the law of averages say that Limba Ram has achieved all the success for one sporting lifetime. But as he draws the string, steadies his hand and squints at the target, one gets the feeling that he may hit bull’s-eye yet again.