Dipa Karmakar chose to see the glass half-full rather than half-empty at Rio.
The 23-year-old gymnast had just finished fourth at the Olympics, looking at death in the eye, by attempting `Produnova', referred to as the vault of death.
Named after Russian gymnast Elena Produnova, who first performed it in 1999, the gymnast springs at the vault and then catapults so high to be able to flip twice in the air. Even a fraction of a second more or less and the end result can be permanent paralysis or even death.
“For me this is my first Olympics. But I don't need to be disappointed. I will give my best in Tokyo 2020. I will go for gold there,” said Dipa.
The Produnova is considered so dangerous that just about a handful of gymnasts in the world attempt it. Not even American Simone Biles who went on to win the gold at Rio. “I am not trying to die,” she is reported to have said, referring to the Produnova.
That Dipa and her coach Bisweswar Nandi, chose Produnova to be their vehicle to success at the top level, is a sign of their desperation. That in the face of extreme odds, an Indian gymnast has to go for broke to succeed. Even if it means risking her life at 23.
Which is why at the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world slept, India stayed awake to watch Dipa Karmakar craft another tryst with destiny. There would have been many a tense heart - mine certainly was - as Dipa sprinted towards the vault for the Produnova.
Would she get it right, would the big stage get to her, would the occasion overwhelm her. After all, Agartala to Rio is the other end of the world, literally.
Dipa showed 23 is just a number. The nerves did not get the better of her though she and Nandi would have liked a better landing. Dipa did not end India's medal drought at Rio but sowed the seeds of hope for the future.
That if India tapped its gymnastic talent from its small towns, from circuses, among street acrobats and made them undergo strenuous training under the best in the world, there is no reason why Tokyo cannot be different.
While Dipa won hearts back home, by displaying grit and character on the world's biggest sporting stage, shooter Jitu Rai apologised for letting down the country. So did India hockey captain Sreejesh, considered the best goalkeeper in the world. Leander Paes asked for people back India to support their athletes at Rio.
“I think we disappointed our country,” said Sreejesh after India lost 1-3 to Belgium in the quarters. But again the positive from Rio is that Indian hockey is looking up again.
It has in Sreejesh a great leader and in Roelant Oltmans, a strategist par excellence. But then, don't put it past the officials at Hockey India to make them scapegoats and score self-goals in hockey.
The template to follow perhaps is badminton. From just a couple of players a decade ago who wouldn't do much of note on the world stage, Indian badminton today offers stiff challenge to the best in the arena.
Saina Nehwal and the double combos may have faltered but Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu are proof that a focused approach coupled with the best infrastructure produces results. That when former players - all of them self-made champions like Pullela Gopichand, Vimal Kumar and Prakash Padukone - are in charge of grooming players, you would perform well.
Dipa Karmakar hitting the headlines was a relief. Because so far India was in the news only for Union sports minister Vijay Goel making a spectacle of himself. First with his selfies at Rio, then being warned that he will be sent back from Rio for his entourage trespassing without proper accreditation and then tweeting best wishes to Dipa with his own photograph like an election pamphlet and spelling Karmakar wrong (he deleted the tweet later).
Goel was following only in the footsteps of his predecessors. After all, MS Gill, when he was Sports minister, had shocked the country by asking Gopichand, “Aap kaun?” (Who are you?) when the coach, a former All-England badminton champion himself, had accompanied Saina Nehwal to meet Gill.
Or for that matter the media, which otherwise cares for no sport other than cricket. For a two-penny commentator on a TV channel on Sunday to berate Saina Nehwal for having let down the country was in bad taste.
But mercifully, like Sania, Saina, PT Usha and Mary Kom before her, Dipa will inspire many young girls to take to sport. Becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to compete in the Olympics, Dipa has taken the first big steps.
As Aarti Singh Dabas tweeted: “Yours will be a story I will tell my daughter. Of toil. Of determination. Of ambition. Of inspiration.”
