Long Read: Where of sticks, and stones

Font-family: 'Droid Serif', serif; font-size It started with a fever sometime around 2009, when she was on the brink of making the senior women hockey team as a 17-year-old. It weakened her so much, and sent her into such an anguished spiral that her voice crackles on a perfectly clear phone connection, while reliving those next two years, as she says, 'Droid Serif', serif lifetime She considered ending her life in the direst of career slumps. A memory that overjoyed six months ; with a hat-trick at the Olympics, an inspiring 4th place finish for India glorious women team and her recent  conferring, can quite make up for. Young athletes are known to get into self-punishing modes while grappling with control of sport. For one of Indian hockey most inspiring players of all time, a somber totem that defines her very relationship with hockey, making on-field challenges look like a dribble-in-the-park in comparison. The team had returned from a good Junior hockey World Cup in Boston where India beat Australia colts in a group game, but stayed on the periphery. On her return, the bout of viral dragged her down, and she found herself out of the senior's scene, virtually alone at her Lucknow sports hostel, even as others chirpily packed their bags to travel to Gwalior for a national camp. The only option staring back at me was going home because I had completed 5-6 years at the academy and then everyone graduates. The environment good at all back home in Hardware, and I thought my hockey was finished, she recalls. Font-family: 'Droid Serif', serif; Font-size: Failing to meet her own expectations echoed in throwaway taunts that she heard since her childhood even when there was no whiff of failure around drove her to the brink. It wickedly entrenched another unconnected yet visceral demon in her mind, which ironically yanked her out of the corner, throwing wild punches. Font-family: 'Droid Serif', serif; line-height: While out of the camp, she became acutely aware of what she saw as an inadequacy in her physically. Broken minds can turn hellish in a teenaged brain, but nothing can make you feel little, like a panting shuttle run. Style box-sizing: border-box; margin padding border outline vertical-align: baseline. Strength-wise, running-wise, in hockey, in everything, she was also the time when she simultaneously took to gobbling sweets with a vengeance. I would eat many sweets because I was out of the camp. I even healthy, It took me time as all my hard work amounted to if I kept stuffing myself with sweets. I stopped, she remembers 2013, she was back in Indian contention, netting 5 goals for India at the Junior World Cup, and her father   in the face of nastiness, suffered from the neighborhood, had yielded success. “Actually, he would always welcome me at the station as if I was a celebrity. Whether I was heading back from a good India tour, or simply back on vacation. He should’ve been around now, at this time, and able to enjoy my success and respect and adoration I got after Tokyo. But sadly he passed away just before the Games,” she says sadly.