It's awkward for Ishaan Bhatnagar to exchange polite smiles with a few players on his way back to the badminton circuit. He tells himself to give a common greeting, Grasp your wounds and move forwardI don't feel anything.
Ranked 18th in the world and scheduled to start in January 2023, the then 21-year-old from Raipur was confident of qualifying for the Paris Olympics in mixed doubles with Tanisha Crust. While playing in the Senior Nationals in Pune, he landed awkwardly at the Balwadi Stadium and hit his knee hard. His painful anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and lateral meniscus were shattered. Many hoped for his early return. Some never texted. But he would later hear what they were talking about when he was gone and gone.
There's no way to know for sure. “The memory of knee pain and sleepless nights fades and I would like to forget if I could. But it taught me the worst dark days of life. Actually emailed me something like this No one did, but I know there were people who said, “I'm glad it happened to him.'' Now's your chance. ’ And now I understand it – everyone is a competitor here,” Bhatnagar said of his international return after playing doubles with Sankar Prasad at the International Challenge in Kazakhstan last week.
A broken knee on the brink of qualifying for the Olympics is always tragic for any athlete. However, before he even begins to learn how his few friends react in the harsh world of badminton, Bhatnagar is forced into a very dark alley. “Of course there were a lot of people who prayed for me and said they were looking forward to seeing me back playing,” he said, dismissing any talk that he had some dramatic point to prove. did. But the boulevard where you broke your knee on the shuttle could be a long and difficult road to physically traverse without this thug's chatter.
It's all about the explosive rush in this sport, of course, and there are quite a few, like Kidambi Srikanth, whose dodgy knee ended countless careers and suffered a shock dip from late 2018 to 2021. The man continued to stagger helplessly. Few outside the fraternity understand what that shattered knee entails. head of the shuttle.
In Pune, few people heard the sound when Bhatnagar, who had been jumping around with an exuberance that rivaled Tanisha's, fell in a heap. He lost consciousness immediately afterward, and it took him some time to come back to his senses. He recalled riding in an ambulance down the highway the next day, still unconscious.
It was difficult to accept that the Asian Games and Olympic dreams were over at a time when the pairing was about to take off. Everything about his hospitalization and surgery in Mumbai is a blur, except for the reassuring words of Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala. “My injury has changed me a lot. It has given me a better perspective and way of thinking. I have become stronger mentally and physically. And my pain tolerance has also increased.”
He moved back to Hyderabad, where he had been training for 10 years, after moving from Raipur in his early teens. But he was in a mental funk there, still barely able to stand up straight, watching everyone else play and train. He returned home and focused on preparing for his many exams.
“No matter what surgery you do, you'll end up with baby feet,” he says. This means you have to relearn to walk, sit, jump, and jog. His month-long limping was a milestone that was unnoticed and encouraged by everyone but himself. Being able to walk without limping for two months was another personal celebration.
Countless athletes suffer knee injuries. But like the Carolina Marin, it is only the medal posts that evoke curiosity about what they went through during their silent era. For athletes who are relatively unknown or easily forgotten, silence can be painful. Coach Pullela Gopichand, who himself had his career cut short after breaking his knee in Pune, will guide Bhatnagar with sound advice. “He said that 20 years ago his surgery took six to seven hours, but mine took an hour and 20 minutes. Medicine is advancing and I'm sure I'll heal faster.” told me to be mentally strong and express myself better.”
For the first time, Bhatnagar has to think about how she has to deal with herself. Years of hamster wheel training, competition, and steady growth in Junior's career came to a halt in an instant. “When we're young, we take our parents for granted. But my father and mother were my emotional support. And my mother literally taught me to walk again. “On Earth There is no one who can love you more than your parents,” she wrote on Instagram. Those were the toughest days for me. Friends and siblings come and go. But my parents remain strong,” he says.
Bhatnagar spent four months with a dedicated rehabilitation trainer at Invictus in Bangalore, where he regained his confidence through individual treatment, but suffered frequent breakdowns. He recalls attending rehab sessions without a wink of sleep due to worry, simply because the routine was calming. He cried out in pain while relearning his court moves, but still kept going. Because that's the process. Some days I would swallow, and other days I would tremble in fear, fearing that I would be injured again where his knee landed. His return to tournaments took longer than he expected.
In Kazakhstan, Ishaan Bhatnagar's run ended in a quarter of the way, but he enjoyed playing badminton and was positive about resuming his journey. He plans to support his ex-partner Tanisha, who may qualify for the women's doubles, from afar, but won't say anything about her reunion. This is because she has started her partnership with Dhruv Kapila and needs to focus on her immediate career issues.
Paris was a disappointment for him, but the 23-year-old is happy to be back playing badminton. “For me, I'm going to take it slow and see how my knee is doing,” he says, not begrudging those who don't like the 21-year-old's performance. “The ACL is really bad. I hope no opposing players suffer or experience it,'' he said with a laugh, referring to the excruciating pain when he couldn't even bend his leg. I remembered.
Did he listen to inspirational poetry or have motivational songs? “No.” He was just crying, non-musical.
