The Game's A Foot

Our Cover Star, PV Sindhu, is a Role Model unlike any other - A 21-year-old girl who's teaching us the meaning of focus.

- Rituparna Som

In 2015, a year before Pursala Venkat Sindhu watched her coach Gopichand signal her to bite her Olympic silver medal as was custom, she found herself sitting on a chair on the badminton court, practising. Yes, sitting. A stress fracture on her left foot meant she couldn’t sprint, or even walk for a long time. In fact it kept her away from her regular practice for almost eight months. Regular practice that meant hitting the courts three times days, starting at 4am, easing off a bit on Wednesdays and Saturdays. “It was the darkest time for her,” says her mother P Vijaya matter-of-factly. “But…,” and she shrugs her shoulders. But she won the Olympic silver medal anyway. At 21. The only Indian woman to have ever done so. At her first bout with the Olympics.

We’ve all heard the stories of the 5-ft10-and-a-half-inch badminton player by now. How she was denied her phone for three months leading to the tournament. How she couldn’t tuck into her favourite biryani while training. How she had even missed her elder sister’s wedding a few years ago, because she was playing the Syed Modi Memorial India Open. Success lies at the end of a lot of ‘giving up’. And obviously, it’s worth it – seeing the gleam in Sindhu’s eyes as she bends to lace up the heels we’ve put her in, a little locket dangling around her neck. It’s a delicate gold filigree pendant of the five Olympic circles with Rio 2016 in a cursive script holding them up. It’s a milestone, to show how far she’s come, a medal she carries everywhere she goes, on her countless felicitations, her many, many public appearances, and of course practice. It’s the bit of Rio she carries with her now, until the next big victory of course.