The book takes us through the historic achievements of Prakash Padukone, says Abhijeet S Kulkarni
The Prakash Padukone Story
Author: Dev S Sukumar
Publisher: Niyogi, Rs 495
Whenever former world and Olympic champion Taufiq Hidayat interacted with the Indian media or badminton fans over the last three-four years, the one question that always rankled the Indonesian was about the absence of the All-England title in his trophy cabinet.
By the time, Hidayat began dominating the world scene, the All-England championship was no more the pinnacle of world badminton. And having won everything else that was there to win in the world, he could not understand the Indian obsession with the tournament that was far below in the pecking order.
What the Indonesian could not understand was that the tournament would always remain an important milestone in the history of Indian badminton and the man who first conquered the holy grail of badminton back in 1980 — the legendary Prakash Padukone — would always remain the man every Indian badminton player looks up to.
When Padukone won the unofficial world crown on March 23, 1980, his family sat in front of the telephone for hours to get a call from one of the media organisations to inform them whether their child had become the first Indian player to re-write history books.
The journey of this legend from a small town of Malleswaram in Karnataka to the top of the world has been encapsulated in Dev S Sukumar’s book, The Prakash Padukone Story, a biography which gives us an insight into the world badminton scene during the 1970s and the 1980s and stars of that era.
Dev, who has covered badminton for over a decade now, has adopted a narrative style of storytelling through short sentences that concentrate on information and facts rather than use of flowery language and adjectives to describe the journey. The author has put in tremendous effort in tracking down the players Padukone played against and re-create the scenes at the major tournaments and the way things used to function during that period.
He also provides us insight into different styles of plays, the way the sport changed with the entry of the Chinese in the world of badminton and the rivalry between the traditional powerhouses like Denmark, Indonesia and Malaysia and also the popularity of the sport in India.
Apart from the badminton exploits of Padukone, the book elaborates upon his constant pursuit for excellence, the vagaries of the administrators and the problems the players had to face due to that.
While Dev has touched upon Padukone’s run in with the Badminton Association of India, his effort to form a parallel body to challenge the autocratic behaviour of then BAI president Fazil Ahmed and the merger thereafter, his academy and his dream project the Olympic Gold Quest, through which he aims to create a system that will help India win medals at the Olympics.
The book provides a smooth reading experience and takes us through the historic achievements of one of the country’s legendary badminton players. However, it fails to connect the reader with the man himself. As a badminton fan, one would have loved to know a lot more about how Padukone mentally coped with the pressure of expectations from his teammates and the country and how he tackled the problem of lack of infrastructure and other facilities.
It looks like the writer had made a conscious effort to stay away from disputes and fights or at least not elaborate on them in an attempt to ensure that the essence of the book is not lost in unnecessary controversy.
Padukone was the centre of the revolt against the establishment when he formed the parallel body in 1997. However, he abruptly wound up the Indian Badminton Confederation and went into a kind of hiding, avoiding speaking about issues in Indian badminton and just concentrating on his academy.
Badminton lovers would have definitely liked to know why the legend felt betrayed and chose to stay away from badminton administration thereafter.
Despite these few lacunas, I feel that Dev’s book is a must-read for sports lovers in the country. Read it for the bank of information about the journey of Indian and world badminton and also to understand the achievements of a man who hardly likes to speak about himself in a world that believes in publicising even a small breakthrough.
The reviewer is a badminton expert