Anahat Singh: What’s in a name? A word from the prayer of Guru Nanak, now a squash sensation in India

The name “Anahat” comes from the prayer of Guru Nanak NEW DELHI: You have to be strong. This exact line appears once at the end of four consecutive stanzas, Pauris 28, 29, 30 and 31, Japji Sahib, composed by Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, in the opening composition of the Guru Granth Sahib.Translated, it reads roughly like: The One is primordial, uncorroding, without beginning, self-existent (imprinted) and the same for all ages. Japji Sahib opens the Guru Granth Sahib, the central scripture of Sikhism, and is a prayer that devout Sikhs recite every morning as part of their daily practice. Tucked into that chorus is the word anaahat, which means unstruck, uncharged, a sound that exists without ever coming into collision. It is also, as it happens, the name of one of the most exciting young athletes in Indian sport, Anahat Singh.“My husband came up with it,” Anahata’s mother Tani Vadera Singh told TimesofIndia.com earlier. “He read the Sikh prayer, Japji Sahib. And in the last line, he knows, is the name Anahat.”On March 13, 2008, Gursharan Singh read a prayer in a hospital room on the day his daughter was born. Something about the word stopped him in his tracks.“He said, you know, that sounds really nice,” Tani recalled. “That’s what I’d like to name her. So that’s (her name was Anahat).”There was no grand plan behind it, and none behind her sports career, at least not at first.The Singh-Vader household was simply sporting. Tani played hockey for Delhi at minor and junior level; Gursharan played hockey at St. Stephen’s College and hoped to play for India before academics took over. Deepak Vader’s uncle was once one of India’s best table tennis players. Anahat’s older sister, Amira, played tennis before switching to squash, and Anahat herself started badminton at six, following the simple family rule that sport is as important as school. “We always feel that sports are as important as studies,” Tani admitted.Anahat brought her sister into squash, and the family openly admits they had no idea what they were building. “Obviously, we didn’t imagine all of this happening,” Tani added. “We just played for fun.Father Gursharan, who never played the sport himself, learned squash so he could help train her and work alongside her coaches. Remaining carefree for years, Anahat wanted to become an Olympic champion at the age of five, although at the time she envisioned badminton, not the sport she would eventually take to the world stage.The turn to seriousness came when she made the Commonwealth Games team at 13, a milestone her mother refers to as the moment when “fun” began to share space with real expectation.That balance of joy and intensity has created a resume that would be the envy of most players twice her age.

Anahat remains true to its meaning

Anahat made her debut for India at 14 at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, won Asian Games medals at 16 and reached the world top 20 when she moved up to the senior circuit.On Saturday, the 18-year-old added to a feat that may end up defining her junior career when she became the first Indian to win the World Junior Squash Championship, defeating Egypt’s Ruqayya Salem 3-0 in the final in Canada’s Niagara-on-the-Lake without losing a single match throughout the tournament.Along the way, she defeated two other players from Egypt, a country that had held that exact title for sixteen consecutive years. The last non-Egyptian to ever win it was American Amanda Sobhy in 2010.READ ALSO: Once played by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, bridge seeks India’s ‘chess’ moment: How 17-year-old Anshul Bhatt leads its revivalIt’s a fitting full circle. A name lifted from Guru Nanak’s prayer traveled from the rhythm of the morning recitation to the grandest stage of junior squash. Anahat Singh gave it a new association of her own by living up to the equanimity and constancy he came to represent.