Targetting bull’s-eye

Tarun Deep Rai, the young man from Sikkim, at this present moment just wants to win an Olympic medal for the country. 

North East News Agency

He stood alone in a corner dejectedly with frustration written large all over his face. Some well wishers went to him with words of consolations. But that seemed to be very little or no effect at all on him. Suddenly someone from among the sparse crowd went ahead with the tri-colour. Slowly, the magic of the tri-colour started working on him. National flag brought him back to his usual self. He moved forward, congratulated his teammates, appreciated the skills of his opponents and finally wrapped himself with the tri-colour. 

Very few people in the country are aware about the existence of Nimachi, a sleepy cluster of a few human dwellings on the foothills of the Himalayas. But this small village of Sikkim has already occupied a place in India’s sporting history. Yes, Indian football’s treasured find Baichung Bhutia hails from Nimachi.

But it seemed that Nimachi was not satisfied by producing only one champion. The tiny village has no dearth of sportspersons and Olympian Tarun Deep is one   among them. Tarun Deep Rai had heralded his arrival on the national archery scene by winning a       silver medal in the individual championships at the Vijaywada Nationals recently. Since then, Tarun Deep’s career graph has only     gone upwards.

Such was the talent of this 14-year-old lad from Sikkim that many experts predicted that ‘another Limbaram’ was in the making.

Tarun Deep was spotted by national archery panel coach Pramod Chandurkar at the age of 12 when the latter went to Sikkim on behalf of Sports Authority of India (SAI) to spot young talents in archery. There in a traditional archery competition Promad saw Tarun Deep for the first time and immediately decided to take the talented boy under his wings.

But Tarun’s parents, like most of the possessive guardians, initially showed their reluctance to allow their son to go out of the village. Citing Tarun’s tender age as the reason, they first declined Promad’s proposal. But the national archery coach was so keen about Tarun that he arranged a trip of his parents to Shillong where the young talent was supposed to stay during his training. Seeing the arrangements and the facilities at the 58 Gorkha Training Centre, they finally realised that their son’s future would be in safe hands and he would be nurtured with care. That day Pramod Chandurkar had a great relief as he could save one champion from being wasted in want of proper facilities and training.

And Tarun took no time to repay the loans of his mentor. Fielded in the junior national archery championships at Chandigarh, Tarundeep struck gold in the very first competition he figured. And again just to prove his first gold was no flash in the pan, he dominated the sub-junior competition held at Ajmer in the same year.

Apart from natural talent, Tarun Deep’s another source of strength is his dedication and discipline. How focused he is about becoming a champion can be judged by the story narrated by Pramod Chandurkar. In one cold evening in Shillong Pramod found Tarundeep practicing behind the barracks in fast fading light. When asked why he wasn’t indoors in such a chill weather, Tarun replied that he was not satisfied with his day’s regular training. For one so young, Tarun Deep was quite meticulous in almost everything he did For years now, he is maintaining diaries, containing every minute details all that he has done. Plans for the next day are always drawn up the evening before. So high is his commitment that he never speaks during competition, considering it a waste of energy.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics, Rai placed 32nd in the men’s individual ranking round with a 72-arrow score of 647.  He faced Alexandra’s Karageorgiou of Greece in the first elimination round, losing 147-143.  This score gave Rai a final ranking of 43rd.

Rai was also a member of the 11th-place Indian men’s archery team at the 2004 Summer Olympics. This team finished 4th at the 2003 World Championship. Tarun Deep Rai also helped India to win its first-ever silver medal in the World Championship at Madrid.

“The silver medal at Madrid has proved that India has no dearth of talent, and we can win medals at the Olympics also. But the Indian archers need adequate support from the government as the game requires a good amount of money,” he said after the championship.

Rai had missed the bronze medal by a whisker when he lost the battle for third place in the men’s recurve in the World Archery Championship. He lost to Choi Won Jong of Korea 112-106 on a day when all the individual finals were held. “I could have won the medal, but the competition was too tough,” said Tarun Deep.

When asked about his dejection after losing to South Korea in the finals of recently concluded 14th Asian Archery Championship held in New Delhi, Tarun deep was quite frank in his answer.

“Look, it is the fourth consecutive time that we lost to the Koreans. Losing to the same team again and again is demoralising. We are trying to do our best. And believe me, in all four occasions we did really well. But somehow victory eluded us. So after the championship was over, I was trying to find out what went wrong. I was analysing their strength and our weaknesses.”

Someone tried to interfere in to conversation by suggesting that Koreans get modern training, enjoy all the facilities needed to become world-beaters. But that was not enough to pacify Tarun Deep. He shoots back by saying, “for Archery, you do not require huge infrastructure. All you need is a 90-metre-long field, bow, few arrows and a target board. We have all these facilities. Our defeat is not for lack of infrastructure, the reason lies somewhere else.”

This is the reason why, Tarun Deep is different from other sports persons. Most sports persons of our country in answer to such a question would definitely blame lack of infrastructure, limited international exposure. But Tarun Deep believes in his skills and always tries to sharpen it by analysing his strength and weaknesses. He hates the tag of ‘gallant losers’. Tarun is a fighter to the core. He always wants to be on the winning side.

Tarun Deep was keen to shift to Shillong from Sikkim just to enjoy a relaxed life. But little he did realise that one day he would be known for his disciplined life style.

“It is a fact that I wanted to leave Sikkim as discipline to me was like bondage then. But in the Army School in Shillong I realised how important discipline is one’s life. If you want to achieve your goals, you will have to be disciplined.” 

With Coach Pramod Chandurkar, Tarun shares a very healthy relation. On his part Mr. Chandurkar always makes it a point not to impose anything on his student and provides enough room to him to plan and implement his train regimen. On the other hand, Tarun is keen not to let down his mentor under any circumstances and always takes all advices seriously.

Although most of his equipments were provided by the Army, Tarun Deep Rai gratefully acknowledges that his first bow,   his main weapon, was assembled   by his coach. Pramod Chandurkar is confident that Tarun will certainly become a champion archer one    day, while the young man from Sikkim at this present moment just wants to win an Olympic medal      for his country. This dedication will certainly pay rich dividends one day.

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