As a kid, my father played squash. Growing up, right from the age of five or six, I would just follow him around the clubs of Kolkata and watch him play. Naturally, when you see your father play something, when you are of that age, you try to emulate him, hit the ball like him, and that’s when it all started. Following him around the clubs is how I discovered squash.
The fact of squash becoming such an important part of my life is more of a natural process. I don’t think it’s ever been a decision that I have taken at a certain age, be it six, seven or eight. I have never sat down and said, ‘okay I’m going to take squash seriously.’ It’s been a very natural process. It’s something I enjoy doing. I started off young, gained some success and have carried on since. Obviously, I didn’t give up my education, and that was always more important to me than squash. Squash, though, was always there with me on the side.
I feel people always say we pick sports, but I think it’s the sport that picks us. The journey is such that, when you start playing the sport, things just fall into place, and you just keep going with the flow. There isn’t really a hard-and-fast decision made which makes you go like ‘okay, from today I am a professional player’ etc; there is nothing like that. It just happens. I think that is the case with most athletes. It’s something they enjoy doing and that’s why they got into it and are really passionate about it and it becomes a lifestyle. It becomes more than just a fun activity that you do for an hour or two hours and it’s been the same story for me with squash.
