Reaching for the stars
Vault Gymnastics at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where, too, she performed the Produnova vault.
Gymnastics doesn’t dominate the sporting sphere in India. Karmakar has her father to thank for introducing her to the sport. She was just five-and-a-half years old when her father enrolled her in Agartala’s Vivekananda Byamagar, the old gymnasium he had himself once attended.
She said, “My baba really liked gymnastics and that’s why he made me take it up. I only started this because of my family. Personally, I did not have any interest in it initially. But I trained hard and won many medals in gymnastics. Around 200910, I realised that I should continue this professionally. That’s when I got really interested in the game.”
She has had to overcome many challenges in her career. But she has always remained positive in the face of difficulties and believes that nothing can be achieved without hardships. “I belong to a really small state and I chose a sport people were unaware of. But I worked hard to perform well. Despite all the struggles, I sailed through because of the sup- port of my coach. I kept putting in the hard work and reached where I am today.”
One of the challenges she faced was training in settings that lacked sporting infrastructure on a par with international standards. “When I used to train while growing up, we did not have proper equipment. That is very important for a gymnast and we did not have that. We tried to get those things and had to practice without them. But I was determined, as was my coach, to just keep moving forward.”
Even today, Agartala has little to offer Karmakar in terms of training facilities. “Time and again we have to go and practice in Delhi. That’s how I spend my training days before competitions. There were times when I came across equipment in international competitions which were not familiar to me. I had to learn their applications in a limited time. So for the competitions, I had to pick up things very quickly,” she said.
The talented gymnast’s journey has been chronicled in a new book, Dipa Karmakar: The Small Wonder, which was launched recently. Coauthored by Karmakar’s coach, Bishweshwar Nandi, and sports journalists Digvijay Singh Deo and Vimal Mohan, the book presents an account of her initial years in the sport, the hardships she faced while training in her small town, and the successes she won on the international stage despite all odds.
Talking about the experience of sharing her story through the book, Karmakar said, “I am extremely thankful to the authors who have written such a wonderful book. When I was presented with the idea to have a book written about my life, I was elated. I can’t put those feelings into words. I believe women can achieve anything and people can learn a lot from this book, especially aspiring gymnasts. I hope that this book manages to inspire people and contribute to the future of gymnastics in India.”
Dipa Karmakar: The Small Wonder includes an interesting anecdote about how she coped with having failed to win a medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi—a failure that made her the target of much ridi- cule. A paragraph from the book reads: “Defeats and setbacks make you tougher. In 2010, the boys and many others in my team jeered at me. I heard one male gymnast taunt, ‘ Ye bhains hai aur iska coach gadha’ (She is a buffalo and her coach a donkey). Hurtful comments and taunts became a routine. But I smartened under their jabs. The target was set—it was a medal at the Glasgow Games four years from then on. It was uncharted territory, no Indian female gymnast had won a medal at multi-discipline games, but I needed to win. I needed to prove myself. That stubborn streak in me had taken over.”
Being the first woman gymnast from India to participate and win in various competitions, Karmakar feels no pressure or burden of expectations. “My Sir doesn’t let me take any pressure. Whatever I know, everything that I have learned is the only thing that can help me achieve more things. He urges me to not think about the results and just focus on the performance. So we focus on my personal development. I just keep doing what I want to do. I have a psychologist, Bhavna Chouhan, to help me with being calm and composed before performances.”
Owing to a knee injury ahead of the Asian Games 2018, Karmakar had to take a break from competitive sports and training for almost two years. She returned to the vaulting table this year in July and bagged the gold at FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey. In November, she won the bronze medal in vault event at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Cottbus, Germany.
Karmakar refers to that recovery period of two years as the most difficult phase in her career. “It was immensely difficult. I couldn’t practice, I couldn’t do the thing I love. I can’t express how heartbreaking those days were. An injury can end one’s career. It is very difficult to get back in the field. One needs to gain the strength physically and mentally,” she said.
At present, her daily practice routine involves training from 8:30 a.m. till 12:30 p.m., and another session from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. At times it rounds up to 8-12 hours a day.
But most of her training sessions take place in Delhi. She said, “Delhi has the infrastructure. There are a lot of private centres which provide great facilities. But a change has to be brought in state-run centres so that more and more kids can gain access to world-class training opportunities. Small towns, like the one I grew up in, still don’t offer this. I hope it happens soon.”
About popularising gymnastics in India, she said, “I just feel it has to be a collective effort. People should come together and help in building and maintaining the training centres. This will include raising awareness of gymnastics and encouraging youngsters to take up the sport.”
As she prepares for the qualifiers for 2020 Summer Olympics, set to take place in Tokyo, Japan, Karmakar’s current state of mind is best reflected in the last lines of the book. Dipa Karmakar: The Small Wonder’s epilogue ends with these words: “Personally the loss of two years is a setback but I am back on my feet, I am determined again. Once again, it is the turn of the donkey and the buffalo to prove everyone wrong. We have done it once, and we can do it again.”
“I belong to a really small state and I chose a sport people were unaware of. But I worked hard to perform well. Despite all the struggles, I sailed through because of the support of my coach. I kept putting in the hard work and reached where I am today.”