Shooting is an ancient sporting tradition of the Indian subcontinent. In recent years following the freeing of arms and ammunition imports, pistol and trap-shooting have become a popular choice for competitive sport in India, and young and not-so-young sharpshooters have begun to win laurels in national and international events.
A promising young marksman is Delhi-based Shayan Masood (16), the reigning (2010) Junior National Champion who has successfully bested all competition in double trap events for the past two years. A class XI student of Delhi’s Bluebells School International, Shayan claims to be a genetically predisposed marksman. His father, Shazan Masood, a Rajya Sabha MP from Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh), is also a professional shooter who competed in the double trap event at the 50th ISSF World Championship held in Munich in August 2010.
Shayan took to competitive shooting in right earnest after Abhinav Bindra won the first ever individual Olympic gold medal for India in the Men’s 10m air rifle event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The very same year (2008), Shayan bagged a silver medal at the Delhi State Shooting Championship and was placed 32nd in the National Shooting Championship in Jaipur.
Shayan’s forte is the double trap event. After becoming the national junior champion in 2009, he acquired valuable international competitive experience on the European circuit, training under Marcello Dradi, the Italian trap coach of the Indian contingent for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. In May 2010, at the Junior Shotgun Cup in Suhl, Germany, Shayan earned fifth rank. And in the ISSF World Cup held in Munich last year, he was awarded seventh position for his score of 137/150.
Since shooting, particularly trap shooting, demands high levels of concentration and mental discipline, Shayan practices meditation to acquire mastery over his mind. In February this year, the 16-year-old qualified to join the ranks of senior shooters and represented India in the ISSF Shotgun World Cup in Belgrade, Serbia on September 4. Currently, he is training with his coach in Italy, preparing for the last of the three competitions for the International Shotgun Cup 2011 to be held in Porpetto, Italy.
On the advice of his coach, this young sharpshooter is sitting out the London Olympics 2012. “Coach Dradi is of the opinion that I need to acquire more international competitive experi-ence. So I have trained my sights on the XXXI Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016,” says Shayan.
Right on!
Payal Mahajan (New Delhi)
Sweetluck Insan
It’s a name that’s likely to remain lodged in one’s memory. And particularly if Sweetluck Insan sustains the promise she is currently displaying at age four. This tiny student of the Edexcel (UK)-affiliated St. MSG Glorious International School (estb. 2009), Sirsa (Haryana), recently completed a 12-month pre-nursery school programme — modules of which are loaded on Intellysis software — in the span of a mere 38 days!
Already a sensation in Sirsa (pop. 1.2 million), Sweetluck has charmed this market town with her prize winning smile and success in fancy dress competi-tions. Moreover the ambidextrous Sweetluck has left the preschool world of nursery rhymes far behind, and has already entered the digital world of power point presentations using MS Word and MS Paint (both of which she has independently mastered), inspired by a school environment that supports live connectivity.
Nor is that all. Sweetluck is also a popular shutterbug having debuted as a photographer at age three. She can also identify countries, continents, prominent geographical locations as well as 250 well-known personalities, imitate 20 animal sounds, and even make herself chapatti and noodles using the family’s microwave. She has a keen ear for music and often entertains her adoring fans in St. MSG Glorious International with a rendition of the school song on the piano.
Nurturing and raising a gifted child is a daunting challenge for Sweetluck’s doctor father Shaan-e-meet Insan and mother Charanpreet Kaur. “When she was a toddler, we noticed how quickly she grasped instructions. Her thinking and reasoning are far beyond her years and we feel blessed,” says Dr. Insan.
St. Glorious International’s principal, Poonam Arora, also takes great pride in identifying Sweetluck as the star pupil of the school. “Such exceptional talent and its early flowering reflects well on the nurturing environment we have in St. Glorious International,” says Arora, who makes the time to mentor the little genius herself.
Wise beyond her years, Sweetluck lists her maternal grandfather, Sant Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan — known for his humanitarian work in the area — as her best friend. According to her father, Sweetluck has dreams of becoming an astronaut when she grows up.
For a child prodigy who is already accustomed to achieving every ambition she sets her heart upon, it’s a perfectly attainable objective.
Paromita Sengupta (Bangalore)