India may have found a foothold in Olympic sports over the last two decades but it was still nothing short of disbelief for most Indians when Dipa Karmakar landed a perfect Produnova , and the fourth place in the vault finals of gymnastics , at Rio Olympics. That fairytale performance would not have been possible had a certain Bishweshar Nandi not taken the gymnast under his wings as a five-year old. TOI finds out about the coach’s passion for gymnastics, the relationship with Dipa and the sacrifices that he and his fellow-gymnast wife have had to make in pursuing the dream of producing world-class gymnastsAgartala: Dronacharya of ancient India now has a city named after him but many Dronacharyas of modern India are not a rage even in their own cities. Your journey to meet Bishweshwar Nandi , the man who has produced India’s best ever gymnast Dipa Karmakar, may start with this negative feeling. Because even in a city like Agartala, which has not had a population explosion, it is not easy to find a man on the street who knows where the gymnastics coach grooms his wards.But after arriving at a couple of wrong places, this despair shall give way to surprise when all of a sudden your auto rickshaw will take one more uncertain turn to finally drop you at the gate of Dasaratha Deb State Sports Complex. Sitting atop a hillock in a quiet corner of the state capital, called Badharghat, the place gives you the impression that you have come a hundred miles away from the din of the city to visit a temple. Being and making a sportsperson is often likened to sadhana (religious pursuit) and any worship needs solitude. Not being somebody everyone follows then is a blessing, as is people’s ignorance about the place of worship. That Nandi prefers this lack of celebrity can be gauged from his love for the state. He would not give up Tripura for anything."SAI (Sports Authority of India) wanted me as coach twice. I refused," he says. "I was offered a job in the Railways not once, not twice, but five times. I didn’t take it. Because I’ve always wanted to do something for my state. As a gymnast, I brought medals for the state but could not go beyond a level. I want my gymnasts from Tripura to do what I couldn’t."Mind you, this is the man who left his job with the Border Security Force (BSF) in 1980 to return to Tripura and later take up coaching as a state government appointee. Wondering how a poor northeastern state commands this level of loyalty from a nationally successful former gymnast and internationally successful coach? The answer lies in the state government’s role as an enthusiastic patron of gymnastics. The residential sports schools run by Tripura government have been supplying children for gymnastics from a very young age for decades now. The state currently owns two gymnastics facilities in capital Agartala. One is in the Dasaratha Deb State Sports Complex inaugurated in 2007. The other one is the sprawling Netaji Subhash Regional Coaching Centre (NSRCC), inaugurated in January this year.So, basically, Tripura is low on craze but high on real support for sports.It may sound strange in this era of insider-outsider binaries that all this was triggered by a man who was not a son of the soil."Our guru was the late Duleep Singh. It was he who gave Tripura this culture of gymnastics," Nandi says. "I got into gymnastics during my days in Pragati Bidya Bhavan school. My first teacher was Bharatkishore Debbarma but it was guruji (Dalip Singh) who made me a serious gymnast. He used to train us at the place where NSRCC stands today."It was that Punjabi gentleman who had advised Nandi to go and join any of the forces so that he could further his skills."There were hardly any facilities here at that point of time. But as soon as things improved here, all because of Dalip Singhji, I left BSF and came back," Nandi proudly says.He retired as a gymnast in January 1986 and immediately took up coaching with the aim of achieving through his students what he had not been able to achieve. But his hard work with the boys of Tripura could not do the wonders he is now famous for. In this regard, India has to thank a former official called Manik Purakayastha, who was the secretary of the state sports council. He, for some reason, felt what Nandi had done with the boys was enough. It was time girls got his attention."I was reluctant to be honest," Nandi recalls. "I was under the impression that girls take much more time to improve. Besides, many in the fraternity were advising me against it, saying a man coaching girls invites risks. There could be dirty conspiracies to frame me etc."Eventually, Nandi decided what is duty has to be done. It was early nineties. Getting married to fellow gymnast Soma in 1990 must have given him the courage to ignore the naysayers because he knew at least his wife would never misunderstand him. Had he given in to the sexism around him, who was to nurture the talent of Dipa? As a matter of fact, Dipa started off as a student of Mrs Nandi at Vivekananda Byamagar --- another traditional nursery for gymnastic talent."We have to put girls under male coaches beyond a point. If we don’t, they won’t progress," says Soma, who was a national-level gymnast and is now a coach. "I had to leave gymnastics in 1982 after my father’s sudden demise. So I always wanted our girls to do well. That’s why I supported when he (Bishweshwar) started coaching girls."As soon as Dipa’s talent was spotted, she was put under Mr Nandi. That was 2002. Tripura’s gymnastics has not looked back since then.Now that Nandi has started to churn out one woman national champion after another, and believes Asmita Pal and Priyanka Dasgupta can match Dipa’s feats, Nandi fondly remembers the Olympian’s early days under him."There was no doubting her talent but what astonished me was her determination to better herself at such young age," he narrates. "She was about nine years old when one day during practice, her last vault at the vault table couldn’t satisfy her. We were done for the day and the next batch of trainees was in with their coach. But she wanted to try once more, so I requested my fellow coach to wait a bit. Dipa couldn’t satisfy herself even with that vault and wanted to try once more. I again had to tell that coach to wait. But Dipa wasn’t happy with the second jump either. She insisted on a third chance, even a fourth. When she couldn’t pull off even then, she started crying and kicked the wall so hard that her foot started to bleed. Dipa’s father had told me she’s dangerous when angry, so I was scared. I didn’t know how to calm her down. She stormed out of the gym and brought a piece of bamboo from somewhere. She told me ‘Sir, beat me up. I failed.’ I said ‘Ok. Go rest. I’ll beat you later’."Telling this story, Nandi explains that to become a champion this kind of obstinacy is necessary but it needs to be guided properly."She hasn’t changed one bit and I do what I do with all my wards --- use this obstinacy to get the best out of her. I try not to let it rule her outside the gym."He sure knows how a champion is to be made.When a champion is made, everyone shares the glory but the pain is shared only by his/her close ones, the coach being foremost among them. However, the sacrifices the coach makes is hardly recognized. Nandi is lost when asked about the sacrifices he has made because there are too many to mention."For a start, I could have done more as a father had I not been into this. My family life has definitely suffered. Without my wife’s support, things could have been worse."But, like everyone else committed to his craft, he is helpless. "What do I do? Gymnastics run in my veins. If I ever move away from this," he says, pointing to the children doing their drills. "I would die soon."Obviously, neither Tripura nor India can afford him to move away. The way children aged five-six are rubbing shoulders with Dipa every afternoon under Nandi’s watch, one feels this Dronacharya still has a lot to do, a lot of Arjunas and Khel Ratnas to produce. Right now he is busy preparing Dipa for the Asian Games but who knows? One day he may give us an Olympic medalist.

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