No TV, no smartphone, just a phone call: How Neeru Dhanda’s gold reached her mother

Nagoya/Jind: Clutching her BPL card, Sudesh Devi was walking from her one-room house towards the village PDS grocery store in Haryana’s Sangatpura on Tuesday morning when her phone rang with a battered keypad. It was an unknown number.“Neeru gold jeeti hai, Asiad mein (Neeru won gold, in Asiad),” said the stranger.Asian Games full coverage | Schedule | Medal totalShe stopped in her tracks. Suppressing the urge to jump for joy, she looked around for someone to verify the news.“We don’t have a TV or a smartphone. I couldn’t watch the news, but I knew last night that Neeru would be competing,” she later told TOI.Devi, 48, collected the ration and rushed back home in a daze.“I still couldn’t believe she won the gold,” she said.Meanwhile, Neeru Dhanda lived out a mother’s dream at Nagoya’s rain-soaked high-altitude shooting range, becoming the first Indian woman and the first Indian since the late Randhir Singh in 1978 to win gold in the individual trap.India won seven shooting gold medals at the last edition in Hangzhou but had a tough campaign here. Neeru gave the country its first gold in shooting at the Games, less than two weeks after she was on a hospital bed, not even sure she would make it through the journey.Neeru spent three days in a Bhopal hospital with suspected H1N1 flu while a national camp was underway in the city. Five days on a liquid diet, she was unable to make it to the training station for three and a half weeks, arriving in Nagoya shortly after training, but with no intention of doing so.On the eve of her pursuit of gold, you wouldn’t know she’d been through it all.On Tuesday, rain landed on her hand and threatened to cause a commotion. But Neeru remained locked on the target.“Aaj agar storm bhi aa jaye, neeche nahi dekhna (Even if there is a storm, look into her eyes),” she told herself.The storm never derailed her.But it was a very different story just a fortnight ago, when she was full of doubt and frail with illness. She was supported by her personal coach Mansher Singh, a three-time silver medalist in the team trap. On the eve of her event, national team coach Peter Wilson gave her a simple message: “Crush it.Honing is something Neeru has done ever since she picked up a shotgun less than a decade ago.

The journey that began at the pond

Her journey began on the banks of a talaab (pond) near their home.“My uncle took me to the pond and asked me to shoot a little sheet of tin. I also thought, ‘Let’s see what I can do.’ I passed that test,” Neeru told TOI.Neeru then took inspiration from her cousin Lakshay Sheoran, the silver medalist in trap at the 2018 Asian Games.By 2019, she packed her bags and moved to Bhopal because the Madhya Pradesh Shooting Academy offered free guns to its trainees. But before she got her hands on one, she had to prove she could shoot.Uncle Somveer, Lakshay’s father and a former national wrestling champion, handed her an old country double barrel gun and took her to the pond. It was almost as if the family were indulging in a fussy child. Today, they would be more than happy to give in to her demands.“We had no money or resources for this sport. Lakshay helped arrange everything. My daughter even practiced with his rifle. His family is related to us. Today, after seeing what my daughter has achieved, my heart is full of happiness,” said father Suresh.

A mother’s unwavering faith

Behind her success is a story of extraordinary struggle, sacrifice and a mother’s unwavering trust in her daughter. Poverty was just another battle along the way.Sudesh Devi started selling buffalo milk to keep the common dream alive.When TOI reached their one-room house, the proud mother was washing the dishes. She looked up wide-eyed in astonishment and said, “Are you telling me it’s really gold? My Neeru won gold?”And then she threw up her soap-soaked hands and cheered.Soon the stream of badhaais started. Villagers thronged to celebrate ‘Jind ki beti’. Neeru’s feat is all the more remarkable as Sangatpura lies in the heart of the ‘khap-land’.Father Suresh Dhanda, 56, said the family tried to support her sports career but she never gave up.Sudesh Devi said she never regretted having daughters.“If God had given me another daughter, I would have welcomed her too. Today, daughters are proving that they can be at the forefront of everything. In the hardest times, Neeru would tell me, ‘Mom, have faith in me and ignore what the world says’,” she said.Neeru decided to postpone her marriage as she wanted to change the situation in her family first.“She promised me that she would first build a good house for the family and start her own family only after fulfilling that promise. After today’s victory, I feel like all our dreams have come true,” she said.