The way Sports is perceived in India is something that I haven’t completely come to terms with. Sports is always perceived as something exotic, where once you enter the industry, you have to win accolades and bring pride to your country. But sports is more than that. It is not merely winning medals and participating in competitions. It’s about having a routine that causes you to exercise on a daily basis. It’s about spending time doing something fun that trains your body and mind. Sports, I believe, is all about developing holistically, and hence it is imperative that sports is not perceived as something for children. This is probably one thing we can adopt from the West, where older people participate in sports diligently, not because they aim to excel in it but because it’s a leisure activity that keeps them mentally and physically fit. But most important of all, because it’s fun and that’s reason enough. So I hope and wish that more and more Indian men and women get out there and go back to playing a sport that they enjoy because it is one of the ways you can keep yourself active and happy.

An argument I see coming from both parents and students as a coach is that sports will distract students from their studies. I believe it is, in fact, the other way around; concentrating on any sports will help enhance an individual’s performance. This is because any sport requires a strict sense of discipline from you, and once you train yourself to be disciplined accordingly, there are very few things that will be hard for you to achieve. Moreover, participating in sports stimulates you both physically and mentally, which will further hone your abilities in all other facets of life, education included.

Sports doesn’t have to be competitive. Sports doesn’t have to be distracting. It doesn’t have to be something that drains you out. Rather, it can be something that makes you a better individual.