Broken strings

A life long partner.

If you're looking for a success story, you might want to look elsewhere—you'll be disappointed. However, that doesn't mean this story is about failure. It's about a moment of success that set off a series of events, which have shaped my life as it is today. And I am happy with my life.

Badminton is the best sport in the world. Some might argue otherwise. I've even heard someone say it's a 'girly' game—and it was a girl who once said this to me. I don't take offence to ignorant statements; I just ignore them. But if you're inclined to believe that, let me give you a quick rundown of badminton.

You may have heard that badminton is the fastest racquet sport in the world. And, Yes it was a man who hit the fastest smash in the world. It was measured at 565 kilometres/hour and was hit by India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy who smashed the Guinness world record for the fastest badminton hit. This was recorded under test conditions on April 14, 2023. The women’s record stands at 438 kilometres/hour and belongs to Malaysia’s Pearly Tan. To put Satwiksairaj Rankireddy’s astonishing hit into context, the fastest speed recorded by a Formula 1 car is 397.48 km/hour while the fastest tennis serve maxes out at 263 km/hour, so surely it is amongst the fastest sports in the world.

This story is not about badminton, it is about broken strings, my broken strings. Let me turn the dial back about 38 years. I was around seven to eight years old, growing up in a lower-middle-class family in India. I was the son of proud, hardworking parents who were determined to succeed, and for them, success meant a good education for my sister and me. So, when faced with the choice of buying a new shirt for himself or a saree for my mother, my father chose neither—he chose to give me the best education in the best school in the city. For me, sports was all about running around and playing with friends in a fast-evolving concrete jungle. And yet, my father found some spare change, a worn-out shuttlecock, and, most importantly, the time to introduce me to badminton. Back then, it wasn’t fast, it wasn’t affordable, and it wasn’t seen as a sport with a future. It was just a ‘time pass’. But, like other things that become ingrained in your system, badminton stuck with me. While I looked forward to the time spent playing with my father, even at that young age, I knew that it was as valuable as the time I spent with him.

Then life took me on an unguided and erratic ride. But, as some say, 'Life had a plan for me,' and I arrived in Auckland in 2008, this time with my life partner. And soon, I started earning enough to live beyond the Indian middle-class mantra of ‘Roti, Kapda, and Makaan.’ Just as life had planned, I picked up a badminton racquet after 22 years. It didn’t feel weird or unnatural—it felt like I was resuming my journey, and the timing was just right. So, between the newfound challenges of being married and a rather extraordinarily challenging employment, I managed to eke out a few hours every week to indulge in what is my passion in life; badminton.

Oh, I forgot to mention how I resumed playing badminton 13,500 kilometres away from where I first began. When you're young, some experiences change you temporarily, but others make a permanent, fundamental shift in who you are. One year into living in New Zealand, a 'friend' took his own life, leaving behind a young family in a distant land. Instinctively driven to help, I went to their one-bedroom apartment, where he had lived for a year. Although the mystery of his death remains unsolved, we helped the family move on by relocating them from the tragic scene. With death looming nearby, its hunger only partially satisfied, I met a few mutual friends. Together, we cleaned the apartment, the stench of death lingering well into the evening. At the end of the ordeal, the mutual friends, equally disturbed and both physically and mentally exhausted, decided to take a break until the next day. It was as if the next day would resume with a vengeance, punishing us for the mistake of being a friend. We decided to meet at the home of another person who was to become a friend for life. Casual conversations followed, and with the help of a newly found friend who cleverly guided us through our emotions of anger and disbelief toward acceptance, it was suggested that we meet again on a badminton court.

Travelling to the badminton court was a challenge, as Auckland's inadequate public transport system made the journey far from enjoyable.

Despite an extraordinarily challenging job, with exceptional support from my life partner, I resumed my journey of making badminton my lifelong passion. The stench of sweat, the feel of the court, the touch of the shuttle, and the perfectly shaped badminton racquet all stirred the yearning of a young man eager to play at every opportunity fate presented. And then I became even hungrier. "Badminton became an addiction, bordering on lunacy and irrational behaviour—playing at 5:00 a.m. or going straight from the hospital emergency department just to get in a game. But unlike other addictions, it never failed me. It kept me safe and away from the diseases that were common companions for many in my generation.

But badminton isn't just about staying fit; it's much more than that. It chooses you and pushes you to become someone you weren't destined to be. However, it isn't a benevolent friend, but rather a cruel teacher. The exhilaration of a perfect serve or an unreturnable smash isn't just handed to you — it's earned through relentless hours of practice and complete surrender to the game.

And then, in the year 2017, Team Racketeers was born—an unexpected blend of social connections—and suddenly, I found myself at the helm as captain. The team was a group of unlikely individuals, content to watch badminton matches from the sidelines, cheering on champions in local tournaments, and used to returning home debating what the losers should have done differently, satisfied and content with their own lives.

But that wasn’t enough for me, I had to win. I wanted to be #1. And I needed a plan.

With the fundamentals of badminton still unknown to many and a group of 'passionate' individuals by my side, the challenge was unparalleled. The authority to lead the team came not from an organisational structure but through personal connections. And it demanded time, a lot of it, but that wasn’t the hard part. With a primary focus on men's doubles events, the search for the right partner was intense, especially with limited choice. It ended with someone who wasn’t the natural choice for many, including myself. But sensing a chance to win, I decided to take the gamble and sign up. A badminton partner is like a life partner—you take time to get to know the person and work towards achieving synergy. So, while I had found my partner, I needed to find pairs for the other team members to make Team Racketeers a force to be reckoned with in a coveted badminton tournament that was just months away. The team didn’t share the same passion and hope towards the game and becoming a winner and that had to be transformed. Evolution had to be both forced and controlled to shape the outcomes, and they didn’t need to know it was happening.

After months of training, hundreds of hours of games, blood, and sweat, we were ready. Unsurprisingly, and perhaps foolishly, I felt confident because we had performed well on our home ground. Then badminton, the game itself, taught us the ultimate lesson. It’s not just about skill, fitness, or even the hunger to win that makes you a champion—it’s the ability to handle the pressure that sets the winner apart from the loser. No one remembers the runners-up, and in the end, they don’t matter. The now-ubiquitous phrase by tennis legend Billie Jean King, 'Pressure is a privilege,' resonated more than ever on the day of the tournament. My partner and I stormed into the quarter-finals, leading in the second game and cruising towards the semi-finals. Then, pressure took over. Facing our arch-enemy across the court, with our families and teammates cheering us on from the sidelines, a victory felt inevitable—an outcome that was expected of us. And then it happened, the serves started finding the net, and the smashes went out, and even before we realised it the second game was won by the opponents. They quickly wrapped up the third game winning the match, and we seemed a distant reflection of what we were capable of. That match showed us what we were truly capable of, we were plain, simple, ordinary, and not winners. I remember telling my team at the beginning of the tournament ‘No one remembers the runners-up, and in the end, they don’t matter’, and it was true and I proved my point by losing. And just like a middle order collapse in the game of cricket, the rest of the pairs from my team were thrown out of the tournament at various stages, nowhere near where we thought we would be at the end of the tournament.

Leadership is a lonely space especially for failed leaders. It was no different for me for the next few days and weeks. With a dejected team having lost confidence in themselves and in me, I had lost; we had lost, and I was alone.

And when you are alone, you have time to reflect and learn. And, that’s what I did. I was trying to find out what went wrong. I went back to being an eight years old to the year 2017 looking for the reasons why we failed. And I found a bunch of them which became the building blocks of my path to being a champion.

The invention of competitive sports is one of the greatest ever. And for anyone to succeed in them, the human body and mind have to be trained and tuned relentlessly. If not done, then the habits that one cultivates through sheer hard work and discipline are the first to wane when paused. I then realised that it wasn't the lack of physical training that was the reason for our failure, but the mere fact that we couldn't deal with the pressure. It was just this simple a reason that stood in our path to victory.

The human mind can be benevolent, allowing you to forget pain, happiness, and all memories over time. Therefore, it was of utmost importance not to forget the humiliation of being a loser.

The following year was consumed by a simple plan of action focused on improving skill, strengthening the body, and, most importantly, preparing the mind for the very moment when we had failed. We simulated pressure, forced fatigue, and subjected ourselves to humiliating losses to remember what it felt like to be a loser.

On a cold and wet April morning in 2018, the day finally arrived—the day we had waited for an entire year, the day we arrived on time for the tournament, and the day we said to each other as a team, "Winning is the only choice we have." It was the day that would make all the sacrifices of the past year worth it. Today, we were there to win.

There were 53 teams, and 11 matches later, we stormed into the semi-finals. As destiny would undoubtedly have it, we found ourselves facing the same opponent from the year before. But we were different men this time, which we realised only after. Game #1 we won as usual, Game #2 we lost as usual, but Game #3 was different. My partner and I took a moment away from the noise, the crowd, the family, and switched off and tuned into the last and final game of the semi-final match. And during the two-minute break between games, I went to the bathroom, cooled my head with water, letting it seep into my mind, and it steadied me. Remember, a partnership is like a marriage and one or the other partner has to keep the show running. There is no other choice. I went back to the court and we resumed the game. The opposition was as confident as the last game and as confident as the last game the year before, but this time we were changed men. We played the game point by point, the fatigue and cramps creeping in to a point of breaking us at a physical level, but the mind kept us going. We didn’t have a choice and that’s when we realised our true potential. The serves went in, the smashes caught the lines, and the drops tipped over the net. We had arrived, and with us came victory. I remember feeling humbled by the win, even though it was only the semi-finals. The past year and all that we had endured flashed before our eyes, and we were at peace. The finals felt like a mere formality, as our opponents were from my team. My partner and I clinched the gold medal, along with the glory, the praise, the happiness, but most importantly, the respect. We stood tall and proud as we lifted the cup, with a crowd of people cheering us on. We had arrived.

But, this is not the end. Yes, there is an end, a logical end to this story.

My team and I continued to play, and continued to win.

And in 2019, COVID arrived. It ended many things for me and many in the world. My father decided to put an end to his and our suffering by succumbing to it. He became an insignificant statistic in the world.

With the world in lockdown, it was months before I could finally meet my father’s ashes at home in India. I was a broken man and a believer in Karma. I delved deep into my past, searching for the reason why it was my fate to suffer, just like millions around the world. But I found nothing that made me deserve such severe punishment. I did what was expected from me as the son and headed back home, leaving behind an aged mother who resumed her journey, alone. It seemed like we were going seperate ways just like broken strings of a badminton racquet that had aged and had done its time.

I returned to New Zealand and resumed my life. COVID continued to rage through the world, but eventually calmed down with some persuasion from science. The world moved on.

The team resumed playing badminton in early 2021. After neglecting both body and mind for two years, and having suffered an irrecoverable loss, I had given up. I had hung up my boots. I was back to where I was in 2017—a loser.

An year later, during a routine call with my mother who stayed back in India, I mentioned about the upcoming annual badminton tournament that hadn’t been played for over an year. With her having ignored my passion for badminton amongst far more greater things on her mind, she asked me why I wasn’t playing. I ignored the question and moved on. She asked me again in a few days, and once I again, I ignored her. The next time I called her, she asked me to answer her. I had no answer that I could tell her. I couldn’t show her how broken I was, I couldn’t tell her “I can’t”. I couldn’t tell her that I had hung my boots because the person who had handed me the first racquet of my life is no more. My father had left me, the little boy alone.

And that’s when I knew what I had to do. I had to do it one more time—just once more—to find peace and prove the same point to myself, my mother, my father, and the rest of the world. It was the best tribute I could offer my father.

But this time, I had only four months to achieve what had previously taken me a year, and it had to be the best ever. I wanted to sweep the tournament and win every segment—a feat never accomplished in the history of the event.

There were 55 teams this time, and I was older, fragile, broken, and suffering. The world had changed. Our opponents from previous years had stopped playing and were nowhere to be seen. It would have been easier. Was that a sign that I shouldn’t dare? I chose to ignore it and once again stormed into the finals. Before we realised it, it was déjà vu—playing against a team about 10 years younger than me, with them having the support of the crowd. And then, as fate would have it, my body gave way. I cramped and fell to the ground, crying in pain. We were six points away from victory, as were our opponents, with the score tied at 15-15.

My partner pulled me up and asked me to stand. My friend asked if this was all I had left to give. My son, daughter, and wife looked on, resigned to the outcome of a loss. But I didn’t have it in me, I knew it. I had given up. Lying on the floor, I was cold, scared, and alone. Fatigue and pain made me see him, my father, standing besides me with his smile, waiting for me to get up and resume. It was the moment when I realised that the greatest win is when it is done not for yourself but for someone you love, respect, and the one who you have lost. I stood up and went back to the court, my family, my team, and few friends looking at me once again with the same resigned look, but there was only one gaze that I wanted to see, it was my father’s. He was there standing next to me and I knew then he would be there only until I won.

As if I had no choice, I played the next eight points with my partner, having lost focus on everything except one thing: winning. And then it happened—we won, and I collapsed. As my father drifted away, tears rolled down my cheeks, and that’s when I finally let him go.

I went back home and, fortunately, sat alone in the kitchen, having poured my father’s favorite drink, a double large Cognac. It tasted sweet and complemented the pain and fatigue my mind and body were experiencing.

It was April 30th, 2022. One year and one month after my father had died.

I knew I had hung up my boots forever because the reason to play no longer existed.