Sudeep Pakrashi follows the ups and downs of ace archer Dola Banerjee’s journey to the OlympicS

BASAK Bagan has its historic importance, but it isn’t quite Behala. Not yet, at least. The modest north Kolkata locality, with its labyrinth of bylanes that once housed revolutionary thinkers like Ramakrishna Paramhans and Swami Vivekanand, is the present day home of champion archer Dola Banerjee. Beijing can change things for this nondescript area and its Olympic-bound resident. This August, Dola has a chance to elevate herself to the cult status that Kolkata’s other sporting stalwart, and Behala boy, Sourav Ganguly, enjoys.
Interestingly, Dola, sitting at her simple home, starts the conversation by speaking about the flip-side of stardom. After getting a first-hand experience of the fickleness of fame, she is a bit sceptical of the spotlight. The World Cup win towards the end of 2007 had meant a Beijing berth was a formality. It didn’t turn out to be so. A sudden slump saw her world ranking drop from 6th to 15th. A tragic possibility loomed large: the World Cup winner might end up sitting at home and watching the Olympics on television.
Like a true champion, Dola battled form and criticism to earn a ticket to Beijing after a commendable show in the trials in Kolkata last week. Relieved after surviving the slump, the 28-year-old archer speaks of the days when she thought that Beijing was too far since there were too many distractions around.
“In the run-up to the Olympic trials, my training was hampered by several felicitation functions and public appearances. After the World Cup win, I was busy doing all this for almost a month and a half. So, it was not unexpected that I struggled to maintain my form,” Dola says.

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