Our school used to host a lot of athletic events, and I used to watch international level players in my vicinity quite often. I was in class 2 when my PT teacher suggested my father, who worked in the same school, to enroll me in sports events. I started participating in sports from then on and never really halted after that. I competed in several state level events, my first national being in 2006. I scored a gold in 100m and relay there, and a silver in 200m.

Challenges should be intercepted as a part of your daily life and not as a problem. I had the worst year of my life in 2018 when I had a cartilage tear in my leg. It got to a point where I couldn't even walk properly. Though some doctors suggested surgery, I chose to go by the word of a physiotherapist who assured me that physiotherapy was the way to go. Months of rehab coupled with swimming finally helped me recover. I had no medal except for one in a relay event the whole year and my confidence was in shreds, but I kept all my negative feelings aside and competed in consecutive events in 2019. I ended the year with a silver in relay in South Asian Games, a gold in the same event and a bronze in 100m in 59th Open National Athletics Championship. I also won a bronze in National Inter State Athletics Championship. I was officially back on track!

Though we athletes don't really need to do anything apart from our training to be fit, there still are certain pointers that we need to keep in mind. I believe that this lockdown is an excellent opportunity to focus on your weak areas, muscles and joints. As we are not consuming junk food and packaged foods in general owing to Covid-19, this is a great time to start including salads, whole grains and local produce in our diet. Since we're in a lockdown, I do resistance training or cardio on a regular basis. Similarly, if you are trying to lose weight, work on it from a holistic angle rather than being unidirectional.