Manu Bhaker, Jaspal Rana and the Mahabharata connection

Bhaker, India’s first woman in an Olympics to win a shooting medal, revealed lessons learnt from the epic war and Bhagavad Gita

Published on:

29 Jul 2024, 5:29 am

Chateauroux:At the Paris 2024 media centre here, a deep embrace, a peck on the cheek and an emotional eye-to-eye between coach and his ward underlined the respect and love for each other. Former Asian Games medallist Jaspal Rana has been a beacon of light in Manu Bhaker’s career and Sunday was a fulfilling day.

Bhaker became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic shooting medal when she finished with a bronze at the Chateauroux shooting centre in a humdinger of a women’s 10m air pistol final. Korea finished with the Paris Olympics gold and silver.

Even three hours after Sunday’s final that started at noon local time, Bhaker and her personal Rana were giving interviews to the Indian media. At every conversation, two things emerged. First, how the duo learnt and implemented key lessons from Mahabharata and second, strong work ethics are needed to achieve sporting excellence.

Bhaker said: "I read a lot of Gita and I try to follow the principles mentioned in it. I am a strong believer of karma and one must keep doing the process religiously and the rest is destiny. I cannot control the results but what I can control is my focus and that’s all I have been doing here.”

“(Ahead of the finals) I was nervous for sure and my belief in the strength of the Almighty gave me the confidence to stick to my process. The presence of my coach (in the stands) also gave me the courage,” said the 22-year-old Bhaker from Jhajjar, Haryana.

Sunday’s bronze medal was a confirmation of Rana’s ability to transform a precocious shooter to a gem. Known for his straight talk, Rana said a strong work ethic and settling targets was part of the hard training he had chalked out for Bhaker.

Rana mentioned lessons taken from the great war in Kurukshetra that formed the cornerstone of Bhaker’s intense training for the Paris Olympics. “Young and strong Abhimanyu (Arjun’s son battling for the Pandavas) knew the technique to enter the Chakravyuha (a powerful military formation created by the deadly Kauravas)but he did not know how to get out and got killed. Manu had to learn the skills of survival,” Rana said.

To stay humble yet determined to achieve the goal (an Olympic medal) was part of Rana’s training. He set up several challenging targets for Bhaker to achieve and failure meant monetary fines. The shooter paid a lot of fines in India and abroad, revealed the coach. The money was mostly used for charitable work.

Manu Bhaker has the chance to win two more medals. She will compete in the 10m air pistol mixed team qualifiers on Monday and the 25m sports pistol, one of her pet events. The qualifiers are on August 2. She could become the first Indian to win more than two medal in a single Olympics after Normal Pritchard did in athletics in the 1900 Paris Olympics.