``My aim this time is just to pick up many gold as I can and not care about the timing.'' She feels that her success this time is mainly due to the absence of competition. ``Meghna Narayan has quit swimming and there are very few good swimmers now. But the Kerala girl K Chitra, and Sreeja Majumdar have given me good competition.''

She feels that her younger sisterReshma could have beaten her in a few events had she been able to overcome the ``mental block'' she gets while competing against her elder sister. ``Reshma has a better physique for a sprinter, but then she does not believe that she can beat me.'' She and her sister came to Imphal because there were no other meets now.

She expects a flurry of new records by July this year. The Asia Pacific meet will be held in Delhi in that month and Nisha herself might better a few marked there, particularly in butterfly as well as backstroke which she had hoped to improve in Imphal itself. Apart from the Delhi meet, the World Short Course meet will be held in Hong Kong in April. However, she is doubtful whether the government will clear the trip. ``We have not received any intimation from the government yet regarding participation in the event.''

She blames the general apathy towards swimming for the poor performance in international meets. ``Most of the swimmers quit by the age of 18. Look at Meghna Narayan. Shestopped competing in swimming one she landed a job. Others like Shikha Tandon and Richa Sharma haven't come to Imphal at all.''Millet wants to continue till the age of 20 and hopes to peak at 21. She will turn 17 in March this year and is fully committed to the sport. Like most of the top athletes in their discipline, she is quite peeved at the way things are run in India. ``We participate in very few international meets. For example this year, we hardly have any international events in our calendar. ``After the Asia-Pacific, it will be the Olympics. I am trying to go to the US for training before that.''

Of course, she is not looking up to the government to support her. She is searching for a sponsor. Coca-Cola had sponsored her for the last two years and SAIL has provided her with a monthly scholarship. Currently she is negotiating with the Trans World Group of Companies.

``We have to pay for our trips to international tournaments like the Asia-Pacific and it always helps to have sponsorships. In fact,she had to spend Rs 30,000 on her own for her journey to Imphal. The rest of the team had to come by road from Guwahati and I did not want to do that. She, her sister and their support system flew down to Imphal on their own.

Millet plans to shift to the US or Australia by the year 2000. ``The only Indian swimmer in India who has done anything of note is Khazan Singh and he too had trained in Australia,'' she explained. ``There is very little opportunity in India for swimmers. She feels lucky to have supportive parents who do not harp her to concentrate on studies and leave sports as the second option. In fact, the entire family relocated to Bangalore after she was having problems in Tamil Nadu. ``There were a lot of politics in Tamil Nadu, so I decided to shift to Karnataka.''

She had trained in the US earlier under the legendary Gary Hall at Arizona for three months in 1997. ``Over there, they were quite impressed by my motivation and attitude,'' she said. She had initially been included in the `SilverGroup' and then moved to the `Gold Group' before being added in the senior list. They have asked me to return to their centre and train with them.''

She feels that training in the US will help her immensely as she will be able to get much more exposure: ``Over there, a single club has as many swimmers as we have in a National Games. That improves the competition and allows us to perform better.'' She trains in Bangalore and is quite satisfied with the facilities there. Most of the time she is practicing with boys, although she feels she has to practice more in short course pools. There are not many short course facilities in our country and that hampers our training.