Firing on all cylinders

His performances have only improved since shooting that ‘silver bullet’ in Athens. At home, this double trap shooter loves a plate of kadhi chawal, writes Gaurav Gupta.

If there is one discipline in which India will, in all likelihood, go into as favourites in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it is double trap shooting. Like Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid, Lt Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore can now safely be termed as ‘Mr Reliable’. Complacency is not a word that exists in his dictionary. After defending his gold medal in the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and securing a berth in the Beijing Games by bagging a gold in the Cairo World Cup, he has silenced cynics who might have expected a dip in his performance level since he won India their only medal, a silver worth its weight in gold, in an otherwise disastrous sojourn at Athens last year.

At home

Being a true Rajasthani Rajput, Rathore loves kadhi chawal, as well as non-vegetarian dishes prepared by his wife, doctor Gayatri, a doctor in the Army. The 36-year-old teetotaller adores his two kids, Manavaditya and Gouri, but it is his mother Manju who occupies a special place in his heart — it is she who has believed in him all through.
He is known as ‘Chilly’ by his friends due to his one-time short-tempered nature. However, he comes across as such a warm and unassuming.

He doesn’t hold back when feels strongly about something, though. When asked once if he ever felt frustrated at being a ‘non-cricketing sportsman’ in India, Rathore had once said: “There are many occasions when one feels humiliated despite being a top sportsman in this country. I have walked out of functions and argued with government officials when I felt I needed to do so.” After his Athens heroics, Rathore wasn’t too happy at being conferred with the Arjuna Award. Understandably, he yearned for, and surely deserved, better. He was awarded the Khel Ratna in 2005.

Like most Indian kids, Rajyavardhan picked up a cricket bat and a cherry at first. He didn’t do badly either. A pace bowler who could bat a bit, he once said; “I was an all-rounder.”

In the army now

His budding cricketing career was nipped in the bud, (thankfully, for all Indian sports lovers) when he decided to join the Army. Rathore concentrated on extending the family lineage and, in 1990, he passed out of the Indian Military Academy with a ‘Sword of Honour’ — an award given to the best cadet at the institute. Rathore was commissioned with 9 Grenadiers, a regiment formed by the British, consisting of tall and sturdy men who could hurl grenades at the enemy from a long distance. The Bikaner-born Rathore didn’t hurl grenades, but shot down terrorists with his precise aim while being posted in Kashmir for two years. His role in the counter-insurgency operations ended after he was posted in Mhow. It was here, while teaching his students on how to go about using a light machine gun, that he developed a fascination for shooting as a sport while at the ranges. He found his forte in double trap shooting.

On target

Soon enough, he decided to be a professional shooter. The decision got mixed reactions from his parents. “My father thought I was crazy, stalling my prospects of promotions in the Army for a sport, but my mother was very encouraging. She told my dad to shell out Rs 50,000 to support me,” he had once revealed to this correspondent.

Rathore’s journey to sporting glory had begun. He won two golds in the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and hit the bulls eye to bag a bronze in the World Championships when he won a bronze in Nicosia to qualify for the Athens Games. Just before the Olympics, he discovered some basic faults with his equipment and his shooting style. “It is too late to change now. I will persist with what has worked for me till the Games,” he had said then. The good part was that Rathore was shooting extremely well. India’s shooting coach Sunny Thomas recalled: “We didn’t let him train in the last few days leading up to the Olympics. We wanted him to remain in peak form for the competition.”

In the end, though Rathore emerged smiling away to glory, it all wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. “It was quite windy at the ranges. On one occasion, when I was going strong, the umpire called for a ceasefire as there was a problem with the scoreboard. It was just not my day,” he recalled. He felt a huge sense of gratitude when the entire country rejoiced at his feat, which in reality, made everyone of us feel proud to be an Indian on August 17, 2004.

Going by his current progress and focused approach, asking the fauji to do an encore at Beijing shouldn’t be an unreasonable ask.