JOIN USIndian sport owes more to the parents of successful sportsmen than is readily acknowledged. The father or mother — often both — virtually put their lives on the back-burner, transport the future champion from training to tournaments, and make huge financial and other sacrifices for their children.
The officials come into it only much later. This is the story of the Krishnans, the Amritrajs, Prakash Padukone, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Viswanathan Anand. There is a book waiting to be written on their parents!
Sania Mirza is no exception to the rule. She reached the World No. 1 spot in doubles and in the affections of a nation thanks to the sacrifices made by her parents.
The best parts of this book are the stories of making-do, of a mother relentlessly pursuing discounts on rail travel, of a father driving the family around the country in a small car. “My parents worked hard to save every rupee they could,” writes Sania, “We stayed in extremely modest budget hotels.” There were 30-hour drives from Hyderabad to Thiruvananthapuram or Ahmedabad. It helped the family bond; it also helped Sania in her exams, as her mother read out her lessons. “I had a very sharp memory and the capacity to absorb information very quickly,” writes Sania.
Sania’s family drives are set to become as well-known as Vijay Amritraj’s battles against asthma in the stories of early struggles. By 12 Sania was in the Under-14 national side, her path was set, and that combination of talent, determination and hard work made the rise an inevitable denouement. It enabled Sania to overcome both a technical deficiency in her service (discovered too late to correct fully) and the baggage of history to become India’s top sportswoman.
The downside to all this was the range of injuries that she picked up — “pain became a way of life” — for it meant a diminution of the fierce ambition to be the best singles player, forced her to focus on the doubles, and get to the top by a different route.
There is an honesty about Ace Against Odds that is at once charming. Sania has never been shy of speaking her mind — the reason she tumbled from one media controversy to another. Recalling these controversies now, she looks back not so much in anger as in amusement. But there is a sliver of anger too. If reporters do not get their facts right, if writers dash off a piece to further personal agendas, and if television anchors byte more than they chew, how is she to handle it?
It was not that every time Sania opened her mouth, she got into trouble. Sometimes it was enough if someone else spoke for Sania to be misunderstood. When headlines screamed ‘Sania supports pre-marital sex’, a newspaper editorial had to be written to set the record straight. Then there was the controversy about placing her foot on the national flag — a photograph made to look that way by the camera angle. Sania seems to have spent as much time clearing the air as practising her world-class forehand.
Through all this Sania remained a popular player on the circuit, a friend as much of Roger Federer as of Martina Hingis, with whom she won a truckload of doubles titles. She played through pain, post-surgery, post-controversies, and despite a decision at 21 to retire because, “This is getting too much. Why do I have to justify myself to people? Why do I need to tell them I love my country over and over again?”
There is something deeply moving about this. The matter-of-fact tone of the book only makes the message come across more powerfully: This is what our top sportsmen and women have to put up with. We ignore them if they are not a world force, and cheerfully attempt to tear them down with or without reason, if they are. Can there be anything more sick than the letter received by the surgeon who operated on Sania’s knee? Here’s what she says: “The writer advised him to refrain from treating my knee injury as it was god’s way of ensuring that Sania Mirza would not play tennis anymore.” As a woman and a Muslim, Sania was subject to a double whammy.
Few sports books in India — and even fewer autobiographies — combine the sport and the personality and the interplay between them with the self-awareness of Ace Against Odds. Sania is still in her 20s and is forced to be more inward-looking than most, thanks to the special circumstances of her origin and religion.
The book is as much about tennis and what might have been as it is about being controversy’s child and what might not have been.
Ace Against Odds
Sania Mirza with Imran Mirza & Shivani Gupta
Harper Collins
2016, pp 288, Rs 499