It is called the chrysalis stage of the butterfly's metamorphosis. This is when a dazzling future is imminent, but takeoff is still minutes away. There may be a lot going on inside this silken shell, even if the world is experiencing a certain tranquility. Countries – even gigantic countries like India – are experiencing these times of silent surge. Think back to how cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma trained himself to remain seated in spacecraft simulations so that high accelerations would not cause weight shift, before making history as the first Indian in the 'space. Return to the time when Avtar Singh Cheema finally climbed Everest's southeast ridge after bad weather twice sent him and his men an agonizing 700 and 400 meters from the summit. These revolutionary feats, which were the culmination of very inspiring careers, would also be the country's first tentative steps in their respective constituencies. Remember the time when the Indians decided to tame and channel the exciting Mahanadi by building the Hirakud Dam, or when the musicians of Goa created the first music of our jazz music by arriving in Bombay every evening at Alfreds from Marine Lines, playing their saxophones. Say no to plagiarism. . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayGo back a century, to the days when Sushila Sundari, an accomplished gymnast and trapeze artist of the Great Bengal Circus of 1890s, brought the crowd to its feet by arm wrestling with the tigers. Or in the late 1980s, when dial-up at IIT Kanpur cost thousands of dollars, India's e-mail pioneers sent e-mails by post, writing them on floppy disks, while still struggling with last mile connectivity. These were the heady days of early development – ​​where the first small steps were taken with shouts and cheers. Now think about Indian athletes – and you have the same era of sporting chrysalis over the last decade. While hockey's glorious past and cricket's thrilling future bookend the entire Indian sporting narrative, it is in individual sports as varied as shooting, wrestling, boxing, badminton, tennis, gymnastics, rowing and fencing that the country is on the brink of the abyss. takeoff, because the winds are caught in the gliders. India is not yet among the main contenders for the main Olympic tables; we still audit the Olympics with collective gasps, groans and reluctance at our frivolous single-digit returns every four years. But the last 15 years have seen a joyful but turbulent dynamic in Indian sport. These are stories of individual endeavors, tales of lonely journeys fueled by nothing but drive and motivation. These are still minor victories compared to the sporting giants of the world – edging out the Chinese in shooting here and overpowering the might of the former Soviet in wrestling there. Taking progressive toddler steps in tennis and rowing one moment, and being bold enough to imprint the grace and courage of badminton on the rest of the world, the next. Go beyond simply throwing darts in the dark in fencing and archery, and storm the boxing ring to land a charismatic finishing move. The last decade has seen India break out of its confines and burst forth like the rays of the sun. But by zooming in on the precise moments of triumph of these outliers, welet us contemplate the last muscular nerves of their body and examine the streams of thoughts which pass through their minds. By joining these dots, we register India's tiny blinks on the global sports radar. But as our man in space noted, it all started with learning to sit still while the world of G-forces swirled. In sports, Abhinav Bindra, India's only individual gold medalist, started this folklore by standing regally still amid typically Indian chaos. This is a record in Indian TIR as brag-worthy as the statistic of the Indian cricket team in the World Cup against Pakistan. Except that the four Indian medalists in shooting will not boast of having all left a Chinese in their wake: Bindra overtook a groaning Zhu Qinan for gold, the double trap shooter RVS Rathore repressed a chasing pack with Zheng Wang pushed towards bronze, silver medalist Vijay Kumar ignored Ding Feng who sat in third place and Gagan Narang denied Tao Wang a medal, placing him in 4th place. Quite simply, no Indian medalist in shooting has so far allowed a Chinese to overtake him on the medal count. India's first medal at the London Games, in fact, came in the ghostly, silent void that Narang created for himself after Tao had already taken the shot that flashed 10. 4. The crowd had started a good ruckus at the table while Narang needed a minimum of 10.1 (In qualifying, he had cheated a pair of 9s around the 53rd move). But he would shoot a serene 7 by 10 points, to dash China's hopes in 2012. Perhaps the most imposing Chinese rebuke was Abhinav Bindra's run for gold - historic enough that the world's biggest newspaper The host puts it on the front page. Rathore had started in Athens with India's first silver medal. But most Indian teenagers in 2008 had never known what it was like to win an Olympic gold medal. When Bindra arrived, it was almost imperative that the core of this success be serious effort sprinkled with excellence. Its precise preparation will later give birth to a volume of transcendence. But it was during this defeat against the Chinese that Bindra's silent ballad reached its crescendo. For the man, the highlight was the fight against 10.7 right after his aiming shot caused the biggest turbulence of his life, requiring a barrel realignment to get back on track. For the world, it was 10:8 – an epic moment of clarity and liberation for the young man plagued by doubt and constant questioning. Bindra would take his final shot at Beijing clearly, quickly, aggressively and courageously. The trigger pulled on those nano-moments between the 4th and 5th heartbeat of seconds, he was the first person to shoot and showed just how royal perfection could look. Perfection measured 10:8 that noon in Shijingshan District. The evening before, his trainer Gaby, unusually calm, had caused a small panic attack in Bindra to get him out of this unusual tranquility. His old evil companion – the feeling of a sword stabbed in the stomach and chest – had immediately stood up. But Bindra had even rehearsed to face this eventuality, and had killed him like a boss. The gold medal had to come after such meticulous preparation that it effectively buried India's usual propensity for relaxed preparation, which saw athletes arrive on the day and hope that fate would play their part. favor in one way or another. He had prepared his body for both the knife-in-the-gut sensation and the reeling mind that might.