They stood facing each other, shuffling from side to side like prize fighters sizing up what lay ahead. The younger man, shorter and of a slighter frame, Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, sparing with words, and Indian cricket’s stickiest commuter Rahul Dravid, who listened more than he smiled, waited rather than waded, held court on the strikes and strokes that make up the sporting universe.
Bindra, 29, who made history in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, recounted his obsessive journey to greatness in a book ‘A Shot At History’, which Dravid launched before a glittering audience that included bowling great Anil Kumble, sprint queen Ashwini Nachappa, basketballers Nandini Basappa and Jayawanthi Shyam and swim star Nisha Millet. Dravid, slow batsman, sharp with words, said of Bindra’s historic effort, “He gave us one of those I-was-there, it-happened-during-my-lifetime moments.”
The evening, an education on the pursuit of sporting excellence, saw the iconic stars attempt to define that moment in time athletes like to call ‘the zone’. A smiling Bindra called it ‘fantasy’. “For me,” he said, “it is all about being in the present. When you are able to sustain that focus over a period of time.”
Dravid said, “Whenever great athletes meet, this (the zone) topic always comes up for discussion, you want to know if the other guy has been there, experienced it, you feed off each other. When Abhinav and I met earlier, we discussed it. Like he said, it is about being in the present, when you don’t have one eye on the score or the pitch or what’s coming at you. I’ve been fortunate to have glimpsed and tasted it in my career.”
For Bindra, whose sport is about attaining a stillness of state and spirit, said that while perfection was the goal, it’s also about what you are able to sum up on an imperfect day. “You have to have a Plan B and then it’s about how you make it work.”
Dravid said, “It’s not about how you do on a good day because you will do well, but how you come through when you are struggling. When things are not going your way and you’re wondering what you’re doing out there embarrassing yourself, but you stick around and make a 100. There’s great satisfaction in that.”
Bindra’s ‘A Shot At History’ is a stirring narration of the journey of an Olympic athlete. The autobiography written with sportswriter Rohit Brijnath, grabs the attention of the reader as much with the voice as with the words that make up the 200-odd pages of the book which takes on the tone of a conversation. It’s as if the champion shooter is narrating his story to you at a neighbourhood cafe. From the moment he wakes up, battling his mind on a winter morning in Chandigarh, to the final pages of the book, where he tells you that he’s ‘learning to suffer again’, readying himself for the 2012 test, you’ve probably downed many mugs of coffee, run through several tissues and finally thumped the table in triumph.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / by Prajwal Hegde / TNN / Home> City> Bangalore / November 01st, 2011