Blossoming into an integral part of the State basketball team

Bengaluru: The Indiranagar Basketball Club's court has a fair few inebriated delinquents operating within its decrepit confines. Typically, it’s a manageable congregation of school students, college hopefuls and a few basketball players before the sunsets and miscreants pop out from between the bleachers. 

But, on Sundays, they’re out in the afternoon: bloodshot eyes, cheap liquor on their breath and piddly bets on tennis-ball cricket. They don’t much care that it’s a basketball court, and they especially don’t appreciate those few basketball players who come anytime before their time with their matches is done.

Aditi Subramanian wasn’t spared either. Karnataka’s Under-16 girls’ basketball captain was the unfortunate recipient of this hostility. 

Fresh from her award-winning performance at the Under-16 Nationals in Puducherry a few days ago, she and her family accepted the invitation for a shoot-around at IBBC.

So, as her parents sat atop still-wet stone benches and watched, Aditi, who represents Vanguards on the State circuit, went through a shoot-around while being interviewed. A few minutes in, a tennis ball came Aditi’s way. She latched onto it mid-way through dribbling the basketball, and flung it back to the ‘cricketers’. 

The batter, annoyed that she stopped the ball from fetching him two runs, let out a stream of expletives. Confused as she was, she returned to the interaction without skipping a beat, and the basketball rarely saw anything but the bottom of the net. 

Swish! 

This sound was the background score to not just this interaction, but has been so through her impressive climb to become one of Karnataka’s best hoopsters. 

The 16-year-old, at first glance, is about as innocently framed as you’d imagine a basketball player that age: thick glasses, braces, a nice pair of sneakers and a size-6 ball at the hip. 

She doesn’t let on how good she is at basketball initially because until she is under the rim, she is introverted, but keep feeding her the ball, and her personality comes through. Immediately, it becomes evident why she is as successful as she is and all the places she could go. 

Aditi Subramanian

“I started off playing tennis,” she says while slowly extending range and holding form. I took to basketball during Covid because we had a court in our apartment and there was nothing to do. I remember I used to get made fun of by the guys because I was small and I couldn’t really play, but that pushed me to get better.”

As is the progression, Aditi was signed onto a club in the vicinity. She then became a common feature in school basketball. Then she was signed up for an academy after becoming a Khelo India athlete. A new club - the Vanguards - was found for her exposure at the State circuit. 

While all this happens in the background, Aditi has become such an integral part of Karnataka’s State side that she hardly has the time for much else.

“… I also have my tenth boards coming up in a few days and I need to focus on that too,” she says while crinkling her nose to set her glasses right. “I can then getting in to my training program and focus on the tournaments to come.”

When asked about her dream, Aditi, still shooting and making it, says: “I want to play D1 basketball (Division I basketball as part of NCAA in the US), and all of my efforts are to get to there. We have already started looking at colleges to help me get there.”

At this point, it’s just her, a bouncing ball, the swish of the net, a dream and a few words to manifest it into existence. All those boisterous ‘cricketers’, her parents on the bench, this interaction and everything else are but peripheral, and she lets you know it. 

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