Rehan Poncha: On the edge of glory

On the edge of Glory.

Any regular dictionary would define the word ‘Hero’ as – ‘a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength.’

But I feel that some things are better understood with an example than with words.

So I’m going to give you an example about one of my heroes, who also happens to be my friend.

Google would tell you that he’s a swimmer who represented India in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but failed to qualify for the London Olympics. It’ll tell you that he’s an Arjuna Awardee. It’ll tell you that he’s one of the Brand Ambassadors of Puma. It might also tell you that he’s Boman Irani’s nephew.

But through this article, I’m going to tell you things about Rehan Poncha that Google won’t tell you, or probably doesn’t know, about him.

They say, ‘Nothing worthy ever comes easy.’ Well, at least an Arjuna Award definitely doesn’t.

Imagine a life in which you have to -

>be in the pool by 5 a.m. and train for 3 hours on the trot.> go to the gym and work out for an hour.>get back home and have your breakfast.>crash for 3 hours.>get roughly 4 hours of free time which includes studying.>be back in the pool by 5 p.m. and train for another 3 hours.>get back home for dinner and sleep by 10 p.m.>Repeat.

When I got to know about his daily routine, the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘Man, how can anyone be living such a boring life for the last 15 years?’

But later, I realized how difficult it can be, and in most cases it is similar for a sportsman/sportswoman of any profession. Poncha’s life isn’t easy.

He doesn’t have an idol, although he happens to be a BIG fan of Roger Federer. In fact, swimming happened to him by chance. When he was seven years old, doctors advised his parents that swimming would help improve his condition (recurring bronchitis). Being very competitive from a young age, it was only natural that he went ahead and excelled in the sport and later took it up as a profession. But there are a couple of things that motivate him – one, his ego; and two, his stubborn attitude of not accepting defeat until the game’s over.

For his coaching lessons, his father had to wind up his business, and move along with the whole family to Bangalore. When he had to tour different parts of the world for various competitions, his mother stayed away from home to be with him.

“Success to me is improving myself every day. Of course, gold medals, records and awards mean a lot, but at the end of the day, if I am a better swimmer, an improving swimmer, that to me is success,” he said after winning the Arjuna Award.

But according to me, the thing that puts him ahead of anyone else is his love to train kids.

“I love coaching and being around young swimmers who are always willing to learn. They help me get some inner peace”, he says.

His goal is to become the best swimmer that the sport has ever seen and win an Olympic Gold Medal. Why not? Not many people, in this part of the world, can say, ‘I’m an Olympic Gold Medalist’. But to make this possible, we, the government of India and everyone else concerned, have to come together and support the Rehans of this country.

For each and every parent reading this article, I have one small suggestion – encourage your child to take up sports, not necessarily as a profession. You never know – there might be a Rehan in him.

And Rehan himself has a small piece of advice for all youngsters – “Love what you do! Make it your passion. Enjoy every moment and at times when you are down, remember that you can get knocked down, but there’s a lion inside you that will make you stand up tall again and again.”