Country’s finest archer and former world number one Deepika Kumari has said that one should not stop dreaming in order to achieve success in life. Sharing her share of struggle in her journey to the top, the ace archer inspired youths to keep on dreaming and draw lessons from failures. She was addressing the 8th Edition of TEDxXLRI.
Her innate desire for food and shelter eventually culminated in the World No. 1 ranking, and that too at just 18 years of age.“ I was born in extreme poverty in a village, and used to struggle daily for food. But this didn’t deter me from dreaming. The struggle of life inspired me to move out of home and make my dreams come true. As a child, I was introduced to the sport of archery, using makeshift bows and arrows from bamboo. I left home to live at an archery academy and master the sport,” said Kumari while addressing the session.
XLRI organisd the 8th Edition of TEDxXLRI on a virtual platform based on the theme ‘Surviving the Storm’, where speakers inspired inquisitive minds through stories of path makers who defied all odds and emerged victoriously.
Deepika took up archery because she came to know that the training academy gave free food and stay. Her family was really struggling, and she felt that I needed to reduce the burden on her family as there were so many mouths to feed.
When she began training at the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur, it was almost like a dream. She had never stayed in a hostel with toilets before for women. She had never seen such facilities.
In just four years, Kumari became the number one archer in the world, winning – amongst many awards – gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and gold in the World Cup in Turkey in 2012. She joined Tata Archery Academy in 2008. She learnt from her failures and scaled to success.
At the Delhi Commonwealth games 2010, Deepika won two gold medals, one in the individual event and the other in the women's recurve event. She has been conferred with the Arjuna Award, India's second-highest sporting award, in the year 2012 by President of India Pranab Mukherjee and the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2016.
“My decision to move out seemed logical, but it caused many family rows. My parents were warned by neighbours that I might run away with a boy. My parents also faced becoming socially outcast. Me and my mother would convince my father that I should be allowed to go away and train, It was really difficult as we had to fight for me to be allowed to have a career,” she noted. She said that when today she visits her native village she is surrounded by local people who want to make their daughters like me.
“I would like to say to the inquisitive minds to draw lessons from failure and never ever give up. Hard work and dedicated vision is the mantra of success,” Deepika concluded.