Born again, despite the odds

Jaspal Rana is flying back to Doha to receive the ‘best athlete’ award of the 15th Asian Games.

Now he can relax. Three golds against all odds, and then being declared the ‘best’ of the lot. Jaspal Rana couldn’t have asked for more.

On Wednesday, when DNA tracked him down, the 30-year-old shooter was watching a comic movie, Ghost Rider, at a Noida mall (on the outskirts of Delhi) for ‘relaxation’. Perhaps, he needed it most, having exorcised innumerable mental ghosts in making a dream comeback after 12 years.

He was scheduled to leave for Doha later in the evening to receive the ‘Best Player’ award during the closing ceremony of the Asian Games on Friday. It’s the first time that an Indian sportsperson has been selected for this prestigious honour in the continental Games.

The comeback must have surprised even Rana himself. Back in the 1994, at the Hiroshima Asian Games, a young Rana had become the pin-up boy of Indian shooting after winning his first gold. He had virtually faded away from public memory. He has struck back with a bang.

A family man to the core, Rana has always managed a fine balance between his career and family. His wife Reena is a national level shooter, though the couple claim they never discuss shooting at home. However, on the day of his departure to Doha for receiving the award, she won’t be there to see him off at the airport. Reena is currently participating at the National Shooting Championship being held in Indore, while his father, a politician, is away in Uttaranchal.

“This is one of the greatest honours and happens once in a lifetime. It’s sad I have to go there alone to receive the award. My parents, brothers, sisters and wife all are out of town,” Rana says, then adds as an afterthought: “But I don’t think I will feel lonely there. I never felt alone. Even when everyone thought I was finished, there were enough people supporting me.”

There were enough cynical remarks during his lean phase for his partying ways on the Page 3 circuit, when he was supposed to be on the shooting range. But he had never bothered to react. Some of the claims did seem genuine though, as Rana was time and again upstaged by the new kids on the block who returned with medals from the Olympics and World Championships.

“It certainly came after a long gap (his comeback). But I always knew it was just a matter of days. Such things (written off by the critics) happen in every athlete’s life. Sometimes, you do feel like giving up. Some actually quit, but I am a strong-willed person. I had vowed that I won’t quit before proving those people wrong,” he says.

“But to be frank, I never dreamt of such a comeback. To come back with four medals, that too from the Asian Games... That’s more than what I had thought,” he adds.