I Decided to Follow My Dreams

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1. Tell us about your background and journey.

I am a professional squash player from India. I am the 9th Indian Woman in History to Enter World Top 100 Rankings. I achieved Best World Ranking of no. 88 as per the list issued by Professional Squash Association on 01st April 2017.

2. How did you decide to make your passion your career? Was your family supportive?

I decided to turn professional in 2014. It was a tough decision at that time because literally only 3 other girls were playing professionally at that time

all funded by big wigs with big money involved in sponsoring their every movement. But i decided to follow my dreams.

Now I can proudly say I must have given courage to more people to do the same, because now we have more than 20 girls playing professionally. Although, I still feel this number is nowhere near enough to the number of girls and boys that should be playing with regard to a country of our size.

We have a population of 1.3 billion people. Out of that more than 600 million are women and girls, which is greater than the entire population of United States of America. But it is still a major improvement.

3. Who is your favorite player and what have you learnt from him/her?

My favorite squash player is Nicol David. She is half Chinese and half Indian and by nationality she is a Malaysian. She is an absolute legend of the game. She has won the world championships a total of 8 times.

I had the good fortune of meeting her when the commonwealth games were held in Delhi and I was invited to play in the commonwealth test even alongside. It was a dream come true to interact with her and click some pictures.

I have also recently learned about a legendary track athlete from the 70's, Steven Prefontaine. He has an incredible story of great performances on the the track with very basic means and rebelling for a cause greater than himself. In his own words, "to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift"

4. What is the level of commitment and time required to make a sport a career?

As with achieving success in any field, there is nothing possible without Hard work. Quite simply, it becomes your entire life because you have to be very involved in all the little details like nutrition fitness sleep recovery. There are a lot of sacrifices involved. But the way I see it, every one gets the same 24 hours in a day and you have to make the best use of that according to what you want to do.

5. How can we encourage more youngsters to take up sports as a full time profession?

Instead of corporations spending so much large amounts of money on one player who makes it big, they should distribute that among a few players who are serious and struggling and working hard.

Corporates and the government should come forward and change that. Anyway after the player has made it the support is not essential to their survival, but it is a do or die situation for many of the players out there. We need a lot more of accessible infrastructure to ensure that sports are accessible to all.

Initiatives like "khelo india" are great because they institutionalize playing sports among children from the grassroots and the benefits will carry on for the coming years.

6. Which is your favorite book and why?

The book I'm currently reading is "Adiyogi - the source of yoga". Yoga is a big part of my life and not only does this book talk about yoga, but also gives you an insight into the story of Adiyogi himself (the source of yoga, the first yogi) and his inextricable relationship of space and time.

One of my all time favorite autobiographies is "Open", by Andre Agassi

his frank and blunt story telling of his life's achievements and low points makes for a compelling read.