Mehuli Ghosh, from Baidyabati to the Moon via Mexico

By Boria Majumdar

A couple of years back, a pellet accidentally fired from the rifle of a 14-year-old girl hit an onlooker at a shooting academy in Serampore, Kolkata. She was immediately suspended from the academy.

Daughter of a non-permanent government worker who literally struggled to make ends meet, she was soon ostracised by her peers and had to seek counselling for a while to keep alive her dream of pursuing a career in shooting.

Cut to 2018, the same girl, all of 17, is the toast of the nation having won two medals (bronze) at the ongoing ISSF World Cup in Mexico. For those who are still not able to identify her, that girl is Mehuli Ghosh.

The transformation from a depressed girl to a confident world beater started when Mitali Ghosh, Mehuli’s mother, took her to Joydeep Karmakar, who himself was trying to ignite his own coaching career. Karmakar, who had missed a medal in London 2012 by a whisker, had spent a year and more in depression and lost valuable time as an athlete in the process. Mehuli, or rather the challenge of handling this 14-year-old girl, served as a new wind to Karmakar’s sails.



But there came another difficulty. To be able to practice at Karmakar’s academy, Mehuli needed to travel around 40km each side — from Baidyabati (her home) to Newtown in Rajarhat.

“How serious was Mehuli was the first question?” says Karmakar. “Was she willing to undertake the commute of over four hours every single day to come and train? She still has to take the local train followed by bus and then auto to reach the academy every morning from Baidyabati,” he adds.

Mehuli, very similar to the much celebrated story of PV Sindhu who travelled two hours every morning to reach Gopichand’s academy, agreed to every condition put before her. All she wanted was someone to believe in her. Yes she didn’t have the means to buy herself the expensive equipment and used borrowed ammunition for a while to hone her skills. But nothing could dent her zeal to shoot.

Three years on and Mehuli will soon be travelling to Gold Coast as one of the youngest Indian shooting participant in the Commonwealth Games.

It was 1:15am India time on Saturday when Mehuli stepped up to shoot the first senior world cup final of her life. Karmakar and I were exchanging messages asking each other how nervous she could possibly be? Yes, she had shot a magical 629.1 in the qualification (a junior world record) but this was her first big final.

her in a big tournament and nerves just vanish,” chuckled Karmakar. “Tell her you have to train at early hours of the morning or late at night and she does so with the same smile on her face.”

If the Mexico world cup performance is any index, she will go to Australia as a serious medal contender. With the Asian Games and the world championships, where Olympic quotas will be up for grabs, scheduled for later on in the season, this is a massive year for Mehuli and the rest of the Indian shooting fraternity. And with mixed gender events now part of the Olympic calendar, she will have one additional opportunity to make a mark.

At the recently concluded nationals in Kerala, she won a bagful of gold medals and when I spoke to Karmakar, she was getting into an auto to go back to the hotel. No celebrity airs, no aura and pure passion. Her coach has explained to her that while she can use a mobile phone, it’s in her interest to not have internet access in the device. Social media is only a distraction that she can best avoid at the moment, feels Joydeep. Mehuli, yet again, is agreeable. If she keeps doing what she is, the Indian shooting fraternity may well start looking at Tokyo 2020 as that elusive bird’s eye. Mehuli does so every single day. To quote Abhinav Bindra, “An Olympics is not every four years, it is everyday.” For Mehuli it indeed is.