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Journalism of Courage
Vishakha Toppo, the youngest of three daughters, born to a steel plant engineer in Rourkela, Odisha, chuckles that she built herself an entire Barbie universe. “Not like that… but yes, I used to tell my parents I’ll study or go practice badminton only if they bought me a new Barbie set. Otherwise, I would sit and watch Shinchan,” she recalls of a threat that always worked with her sports-mad parents.
Back-court audacious hitting prevailed over squeaking anime heroes in that absolute outpost of shuttle, an idyllic, quiet, steel city where recreational badminton is building critical mass for elite talent to emerge – Rourkela. Vishakha, who played a part in India nailing down a World Junior mixed team bronze medal, belongs to that bunch of young shuttlers emerging from centres that don’t go by the name Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai or Lucknow – the traditional hubs.
India’s u19 men’s singles lead was Rounak Chouhan – a harbinger of another city ready to send huge badminton numbers into limelight in the future – Raipur. Doubles shuttler Bhavya Chhabra comes from Vaishali in Ghaziabad, another centre that’s exploding with shuttlers, unafraid to play doubles, starting out in basic, but well-maintained local courts, and who are staking their place on the shuttle map.
Hoshiarpur, where Tanvi Sharma comes from, or Coimbatore, which has struck a lucky break with Rakshitha Ramraj, are other new territories, waiting for one success to spawn many similar confident stories.
But back to Toppo. Like most athletes from Odisha, she’s blessed with good natural speed. Her parents loved marathons and the art of running. “They will go and watch. They don’t run. But I want to run marathons. 10 km ones to start with,” she says of the state’s basic love for sports. Her elder sisters did karate and basketball and then settled for studies. “But my father was determined to make me an athlete. I don’t know how he managed, but he would buy 3 barrels of shuttles and racquets for me. It must have been so so hard,” she recalls.
Ask her why she’s in doubles, and not chasing singles glory. “That’s a tragedy,” she guffaws, “I just keep winning in mixed doubles! I don’t know why I get good results in mixed,” laughs the aggressive hitter from the back court.
Vishakha will play mixed doubles this week at the World Juniors with Bhavya Chhabra. Once again, the father, an architect, would drag a reluctant son to the courts where he played recreationally at Ghaziabad. At 6’3″, he’s an unorthodox choice for the front court in doubles. But with Chirag Shetty and Kevin Sanjaya as his heroes, he’s picking the tricks of the trade.
The aggressive neighbourhood shuttlers who got competitive even in fun games, used ridiculous cunning deceptions on shots and ceded not an inch, gave Chhabra, a teacher’s son, a firm footing in the blistering world of doubles shuttle. The bravado could do some tempering, but it compensates for small town tentativeness when they come up against self-assured peers from Hyderabad and Bangalore.
In Rounak Chouhan there is no dearth of audacity either. A hyper-aggressive player who is only just learning to tone it down, the energy – coaches would say – only needs direction. “I need to be calmer, focus on strokes and breathing,” says the tall Raipur player, with an inclination of a spiker.
Back in Chhattisgarh, his mother played shuttle in college, while father was a cricketer. “From her I learnt that even on a bad day, I should give my 100 percent,” he says, his enthusiasm sobered a little by loss to Indonesia, but still riding a wave after Guwahati raised the decibels for the furst-ever team semifinal.
At Raipur they told him, every time he’s on the back court he needs to jump and strike the shuttle, a basketball muscle memory amongst youngsters who dabble at several sports. Explosive gym sessions have equipped him with landing technique and variations of smash, half smash and drops given him confidence to play that high-tempo game like his favourite Lakshya Sen.
But there’s another curious role model common to this bunch of shuttlers: Cristiano Ronaldo, even if they are fans of Lin Dans and Matsuyamas in their respective event. “It’s because of how hard-working he is,” says Rounak, who has learnt how to time his jumps from watching the Portuguese winger.
“We talk a lot about him, and the hard work he has put in in his sport,” Vishakha adds of the Madeira-born. “But also, he too came from an Ok-Ok background,” she says. Shuttlers from India’s ‘ok-ok backgrounds’ too are aspiring to grow wings and take flight now.
