Book Review: A Shot at History-My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold

This is India’s greatest sporting glory ever. To tell it, we need India’s greatest sport writer.

The English language, with all its grace and beauty, does not have words to describe something as colossal as the Olympics. The word “Olympic/Olympian” is used as a metaphor for something grand, perfect and majestic. If that is so, which figure of speech or other literary ornamentation should one use to describe the real Olympics- the quadrennial extravaganza of sporting pinnacle, not the metaphor?

Well, not a problem, if your story is as inspiring as that of Abinav Bindra, India’s first and till now only individual Olympic gold medalist and if your penmanship is as skillful as that of Rohit Brijnath.

“A Shot at History” is an inspiring  story of one man’s journey to be the absolute best in his chosen craft. It is also an ode to the single mindedness of his focus, the depth of his hunger and doggedness of his pursuit.  But most importantly, it is a tribute to something far more elemental and primordial in the human nature: desire. Desire sent man to explore continents across uncharted oceans; it sent us to the moon and to Mars. The very same desire turned a 13 year old prodigy, shooting with flimsy guns under a mango tree, into a World Champion and later an Olympic champion. “A shot at History” is pure desire put to sublime prose.

Bindra’s story starts with acknowledging the role of his parents, family and friends in his success. But that is just like getting the obvious out of the way first. After he starts narrating his journey, there is no looking back and you cannot help but marvel at this deceptively gentle looking boy’s obsession. In the chapter called “The Shooting Days: Trials and Tremors” he gives us a peek into his character. “I approach shooting like a scholar, like I approach life”- he says.  He also expresses his high regard for some cricketing greats like Tendulkar and Dravid, which is admirable since an almost perennial grimace of Olympic athletes in India is the step motherly treatment meted out to them vis-a-vis the cricketers. By doing this, Bindra chooses to rise above the bickering and the mud slinging, above the whining and the complaining. In fact, he takes this status quo very sportingly when he says, “People will never chant my name” and “ We (shooters) are the nerds of sports.” He could easily have turned this book into a long, grumpy, ego talk, like that of Lance Armstrong, or a book of barbs, like that of Kevin Pieterson. But Bindra seems to have and also exudes a maturity far beyond his years. The language used in the book is not self promotional, but self exploratory. You know this guy takes himself and his craft very seriously but he never bores you with monologues on “Me Vs the World” and “My Sacrifices”.

But the theme of this book is his obsession. He went to extreme, almost insane lengths to be the best in his sport. He got the soles of his shoes hand made with rubber from Ferrari tyres. He drank yak milk to improve concentration. He undertook commando training to improve his confidence before the Olympics. He got his brain mapped to subdue the chatter within. Rohit Brijnath’s artistry with the words ensures that the narrative is taut, engaging and keeps building up till the fag end where it reaches the crescendo. And when the moment of reckoning arrives in Beijing in 2008, you almost feel that you are there watching this young man, in his nirvana state, his gaze transfixed on the Bull’s eye, his balance steady like a yogi . With 10 close-to-perfect shots, he  finally manages to tame the beast, slay the dragon in the Land of the Dragons. A culmination of a cherished dream, a childhood fantasy which became an adult ambition and then an obsession.

Bindra also shows his class by not taking pot shots at individual sports officials, politicians and rivals. In doing so, he resists the temptation of attracting controversy which would have helped sales. But that does not deter him from pointing the fallacies in our system as a whole and exposing the self serving attitude of the sports officials in India in general (Read the ironically titled chapter called “Mr. Indian Official: Thanks for Nothing”). Bindra also answers the critics who downplay his achievement by saying that his rich father was able to afford to him all the facilities for training which may not be available to other sports persons in the country.  “I guess the Ambanis and the Tatas never thought of this. Medal for hire for their progeny, that sort of thing”, he writes. Take that !

The book has been written like a painting on a canvas, the various chapters appear contiguous. This makes the narrative fused and repetitive at times since it becomes difficult to differentiate between , say how was Bindra’s performance in Tournament X different from that in Tournament Y. This is the only low point, if we could call it that, of the book.

All in all, I would highly recommend this book to the novice reader, to the sports aficionados and to any  one who wishes to achieve greatness in his craft.