Former national champion Mithun Manjunath splashed water on his clothes and slept off on open terraces in sticky summers because he couldn’t afford even a basic hotel room with fans at times when travelling to small tournaments as a junior.
Ayush Shetty had to split his home, leaving his father alone in Udipi, because the whole family couldn’t shift en masse to Bangalore – the finances wouldn’t add up.
Mothers of a few women’s singles shuttlers do crash courses in nutrition, massage techniques, and even ankle taping because they can’t afford travelling physios.
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy’s late father would stand as a linesman and officiate at local tournaments as chair umpire, so his son’s habit of busting racquet strings when smashing could be funded, a career needed to soar.
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Treesa Jolly would live alone away from home and go hungry if she missed hostel deadlines due to practice. For the twice All England semifinalist, a job appointment has been elusive, and financial independence is still a dream.
You see them feted and felicitated as stars when they score big wins on the international stage. And you ask questions when they don’t deliver medals, even having the audacity to tell World Championship medallists to retire, with casual age-shaming. But spelling out their financial struggles, hearing about the family’s middle-class sacrifices, reading about the reality that athletes live through very testing times when they commit to sport as a career, exhausts and bores your eyes and ears.
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India wants the perfect champion – who speaks only after winning, stays humble, and moves on to higher goals, shrugging off the family’s tough times, because elite sport is so expensive. ‘What’s new? It’s India’ is the refrain.
ALSO READ | Mithun Manjunath, the working-class shuttler, who won’t back down
Reality is different. Jewellery has been mortgaged, family vacations not taken for a decade, homes relocated to where badminton is taught, families needing to separate, second-hand racquets get passed on, and shuttles with firm-ish feathers are scavenged from venues to be re-used, because they cost a bomb.
These are the so-called ‘sob stories’ of sport. The weepy tales, the repetitive details of financial struggle, that many don’t want to read about, or are fatigued by. Because, what’s different? Why highlight the money struggles, the ‘humble’ origins, when sport could be altogether far more dazzling and dramatic, if we just stuck to the spotlight that falls on court? It’s reductive, they say, of what goes into the making of an athlete. And redundant even, once they hit the big league, are surrounded by marketing suits, buy flashy cars, build themselves big homes, and grow some airs (i.e. vaguely look happy).
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Everyone might not come from humble backgrounds, but badminton, like tennis some years ago, is deeply eating into the pockets of even middle-class parents, and pushing them into financial strife.
Coaches – from Hyderabad to Bangalore, Mumbai to Jodhpur and Assam to Chennai – are issuing warnings that rising shuttle costs are making running costs of academies untenable. Academies really have no choice but to push forward the expenses to parents, making badminton so expensive that the number of those persevering is shrinking.
With vanishing PSU appointments and disappearing jobs, coupled with almost doubled fees to offset the shuttle costs, the deeply popular sport is going out of reach for many. Parents and coaches are heartbreakingly watching drop-outs leave the sport, if results in juniors don’t fetch up.
So pardon us for mentioning this stark background of many players over and over again, while it stings eyes to read about the reality that sons or daughters of aspirational middle-class parents, or farmers and labourers, are foolishly persevering, putting in hours trying to manage the impossible – in every sport, not just badminton.
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Even if it’s the 100th sob story, the same old tale of struggle, it deserves telling. Too bad if you are bored.
Booking courts to play, the continuous streams of shuttle tubes needed to train, the racquets and shoes are difficult expenses for families. Unless there is a massive PR backing for a particular player from a young age, shuttlers are left to fend for themselves till 17-18. Many drop out, but many others dig their heels in, suffer taunts of relatives, but keep trying. Success typically comes late, and families often go all in, with hopes high of success, but the chances of succeeding are minuscule. Travelling for tournaments is never easy if you are not in the core bunch from junior upwards.
The freakish success of Saina-Sindhu has made the dream look possible, but the details of the pathway are never considered. Most Indians ‘discovered’ Sindhu in 2016 after they peeled their eyes off cricket and watched the Olympics. Who funded her shuttles and support staff during her first two World Championships bronzes in 2013 and 2014 is never delved into. Countless others try till their teens and then fade out, deeply heartbroken. It’s worse when entire lives of family members are devoted to the struggle. But it’s just another story of sobbing, humble beginnings, that many are now too fatigued to hear.
