Deepika Kumari: From poverty and hunger to gold medals and fame

Deepika Kumari has always possessed the right ingredients for her career to bear fruit, such as skill, hard work, determination and perseverance. These positive traits were further strengthened by poverty, hunger and big dreams. The mixing of all these components eventually helped make Deepika Kumari a household name in Indian archery.

It wasn’t an easy start. It was never meant to be. Born to an auto-rickshaw driver and a nurse in a small hamlet in the hinterlands of Ranchi in Jharkhand, Deepika Kumari had to make tough choices at the tender age of 12.

Deepika Kumari - The formative years

Living in a thatched hut in her village of Ratu Chatti in utmost poverty meant two square meals were at a premium. Discord within the family was of no help either and Deepika Kumari was left to decide how she could help lessen the burden on her parents.

She had to choose what she was good at – aiming at mangoes on trees with stones, and later, with homemade bamboo bows and arrows, and that’s how archery came calling. More than the sport itself, it was the prospect of a house and three meals a day that Deepika Kumari found enticing.

An archery training center owned by a noted local politician’s wife in Saraikela, Jamshedpur was Deepika Kumari’s first stop. There, her cousin, an archer herself, provided constant support.

Rise to fame

Within a year, Deepika took to archery like a fish to water. Practicing for the first time with formal equipment, her joy knew no bounds. She also received her first stipend – Rs. 500 per month – and soon became a prodigy in recurve archery.

Deepika Kumari's dreams kept getting bigger and so did her professional targets. Her stock soared as her participation in tournaments increased. There was no looking back. Topping the charts at most of her junior and senior events, Deepika soon became a celebrity in her village. Her neighbors – who once scoffed at her parents for allowing her to pursue sports – were now singing her praises.

World Cup wins, World Championship medals, and podium finishes in events such as the Commonwealth Games came regularly for Deepika. The archer sizzled with intensity and it looked like she could do no wrong.

The slide of Deepika Kumari

However, no success graph has a constant upward curve, and Deepika Kumari’s was no exception. While a world No. 1 ranking gave her accolades, a dip in form – including mistakes in two successive Olympic Games in London (2012) and Rio de Janeiro (2016) – earned brickbats.

Suddenly, over 30 international medals, including Commonwealth Games, World Cup and Asian Championship golds, had no meaning. People started avoiding Deepika and she became a cynosure of negativity. Opinions on her game and her skills became a steady talking point. That’s when the archer knew she had to shut off and learn another lesson.

Deepika Kumari was shrouded in negativity and self-doubt. While giving it all up was the easiest option, her love for the sport and determination to fight back kept her sane. She even contemplated an offer to act in a Bollywood movie but decided against it at the last minute. Deepika soon turned to mental conditioning, learning to control her thoughts and look at the positive side of things.

Her marriage to longtime beau Atanu Das also helped her in many ways. Atanu, a recurve archer himself, shared a lot in common with Deepika, and the duo found solace in each other both in the good times and bad. The duo constantly motivated each other, and as Deepika took on an anchor’s role to help Atanu clinch his first-ever World Cup gold, it helped her out as well.

Things slowly limped back to normalcy, and Deepika Kumari found herself back where she belonged – on the international podiums.

After rising to the pinnacle by winning a gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Deepika Kumari has seen many podiums in her career – including five top-three finishes in seven World Cup Final appearances, but a podium finish at the Olympics has proved elusive. However, with the right mix of components in her kitty once again, she could well be set for a fruitful Tokyo Olympics.