Paris Olympics: Despite close miss, Arjun Babuta’s mother says medal dream will live on

“Sab toh khatarnak hunda hai sade supnayen da mar jana (The most dangerous thing is the death of our dreams). It’s just the start of Arjun’s Olympic dream and a fourth place can’t end his journey as a shooter or his dream to win an Olympics medal for India some day. That’s what he has lived every single day of his life and will continue to do so. Woh Arjun hai, woh janta hai sapno ko dobara dekhna (He is Arjun, one who knows how to dream again),” Deepti, whose short story collection Bhukh Eon Sah Laindi Hai (Hunger breathes like this) had won the Dhahan Prize for Punjabi International Literature last year, tells The Indian Express, holding back tears.

While Arjun’s father Neeraj was cheering for the youngster during the eight-shooter final, where Arjun was among the top three for the major part, the retired station superintendent kept himself in his room aftert the near-miss for his son.

Author Deepti Babuta, mother of Paris Olympics fourth-place shooter Arjun Babuta, shared old memories about Arjun’s struggle, also showing the books and other things at their residence in Kharar on Monday. Express photo by Jasbir Malhi

Deepti says Arjun was born to take down targets regardless of setbacks. “When Arjun was in my womb, his father had decided about the name Arjun if it was a boy. I would often recite tales from the Mahabharata and Ramayana to my elder daughter Durga while I was pregnant. Maybe, his resilience comes from that.

“When he was nine months old, Arjun had a severe fever and could not walk or talk till he was two-and-a-half-years old. The doctors told us that it would be tough for him to even survive. Once during his early days in shooting, he suffered Chikungunya and would have fever almost every day. His coaches would tell me to apply ice packs all night and Arjun would ask me to tell him his favourite stories,” recalls the mother.

#Paris2024 #Shooting

An emotional Deepti Babuta, mother of Arjun Babuta, speaks with @IndianExpress after her son missed an #Olympics medal by a whisker.

Video: Jasbir Malhi

READ @Nitinsharma631's story: https://t.co/GVFzuyZiHv pic.twitter.com/ccZNOEzYQQ

— Express Sports (@IExpressSports) July 29, 2024

The Babutas, who originally hail from Jalalabad, a border town in Punjab, shifted to Mohali in 2011 for better opportunities for their children. Neeraj was a station superintendent and Deepti working as a judicial officer in a consumer court. Arjun’s fascination with shooting began when his father read an article about a shooter winning multiple medals in 2012. A teenaged Arjun would approach Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra’s coach JS Dhillon for training in 2013. He would accompany her mother on a scooter with his equipment in an auto-rickshaw.

Arjun would win a bronze medal at the ISSF Junior World Cup and an Asian Championships silver in 2016. But he suffered a setback in 2018 when he fell during practice at the Mohali range. His coaches and family would consider it a minor problem before another fall during a practice session in Chennai.

“When he fell at the range for the first time, his fellow shooters picked him up and brought him home. When he had another fall in Chennai, we got worried. Doctors in Chennai and later PGIMER, Chandigarh diagnosed it as a bulging disc problem in his spine and told us that he couldn’t shoot, so we started thinking about other careers.

“There were days when he could not stand for more than 15 minutes, but he asked his father to build him a range at home where he could do shadow practice,” his mother shares.

Arjun went through a year-long physiotherapy programme before making a comeback. Coach Deepali Deshpande remembers that phase.

“It happened due to severe stress on the back after 15-20 minutes of shooting. It was due to his sheer resilience and physiotherapy that he was able to start shooting again,” says the coach.

Arjun would make a comeback with six scores in excess of 630 in national competitions in 2021 before missing a spot in the Tokyo Olympics team. After sealing the Paris quota, he made the spot his own through trials.