Teachers' Day Special: Saina Nehwal, Pullela Gopichand and the perfect gift

An ideal partnership: Saina Nehwal gives her coach Pullela Gopichand a high-five after reaching the quarterfinals of the the Badminton Asia Championship in New Delhi on April 15, 2010. (Getty Images)

A journalist friend, who covered the 2000 Sydney Olympics, had an interesting story to tell. Pullela Gopichand, who in those days wasn’t quite the household name he became later, sat depressed in the spectator gallery.

Gopi looked heart-broken, and muttered a few words, to the effect that he had blown a golden chance. He had lost to eventual finalist Hendrawan in the pre-quarterfinals. What surprised the journalist was that nobody had expected the Indian to beat Hendrawan or return with a medal, and yet here he was, berating himself.

Fast-forward to London, 2012 and Saina Nehwal has just won an Olympic bronze. There is a huge Indian contingent at the press conference, and she receives a standing ovation when she arrives. It is a special moment, for it is India’s first badminton medal in Olympic history. Standing beside her, looking as unruffled as ever, is Gopichand.

I knew how much the loss to Hendrawan at Sydney had hurt him. “Does Saina’s medal make up for that loss?” I asked. Gopi nodded with a broad smile. “Yes it does,” he said.

The theme of teachers living their dreams through their students is a much-explored one in books and movies. The Gopi-Saina partnership follows its broad contours, for Gopi did achieve a cherished dream when Saina pocketed the bronze.

The bronze owes as much to Gopi’s meticulous planning, training and conceiving of ideas as it does to Saina’s talent, persistence and hard work. If Saina executes much of what Gopi plans, it’s also true that without Saina, many of Gopi’s dreams might have gone unrealised.

What makes Gopi the ideal teacher and Saina his perfect disciple?

When Gopi was made national chief coach in 2006, he was an aberration in the Indian sports set-up. Indian coaches were usually wizened old men, who boast of past exploits but with precious little to show in the contemporary context.

When Gopi was made coach, he was probably the youngest national coach in any Indian sport. He wasn’t yet finished as a player, and he carried with him the remarkable energy and guile of his recent playing days. Most importantly, he had been in the thick of action and knew exactly the kind of demands contemporary badminton threw up.

Players of past eras have often erred because they did not understand contemporary demands. The game had changed radically – in terms of scoring system, technology, playing arenas, and opponents amongst other things.

Nobody else could have provided the expertise and authority that Gopi did. It was of course fortunate that Saina came along at just the right moment. With her as his student, he could execute the ideas that he had picked up during his long international career.

A student’s gift: Nehwal stands with her London 2012 Olympic bronze medal at Wembley Arena on August 4, 2012 in London, England. (Getty Images)

Saina was blessed with extraordinary strength, both of the body and of the mind, and Gopi was presented with the right material. He guided her expertly, helping her win one major tournament after another, until it was obvious that Saina was more than just another badminton hopeful – she was among the elite of the sport.

The relationship has not been without setbacks. There was a brief period when Saina left Gopi to train with another coach, Bhaskar Babu. A few months of indifferent form later, the prodigy returned.

In a recent interview, Gopi said Saina, after a loss in Denmark, went to him with tears in her eyes and asked him to do something about her results. Gopi told her they could move on, and promised her an Olympic medal.

“As a player you go through different stages in your career and sometimes you get advice from the wrong people,” Gopi said in the interview to Indian Express. “But the beauty of these players, to a large extent, is that they have cracked the big stage at a young age. Even if they make a mistake, they have the time to rectify it.

“And this is what makes this whole journey even better for us… With my experience and knowledge, I have the belief that this is the way it should be done. A player, at a certain point, can say, ‘ok I also have my opinion’. It was the same with Saina and I just said, ‘it’s your call’. She realised a couple of months down the line that she had made a mistake.”

The Gopi-Saina duo has revolutionised badminton in India. The Olympic medal might be the cherry on the cake, but there have been so many triumphs together that it’s hard to single out one.

Thankfully for India, their success as a combination happened when sport itself was undergoing a transformation in India. New Delhi hosted the Asian Championships, the India Open Superseries and the Commonwealth Games. Saina’s successes were seen live.

With each year, the audience has grown. It would have been so different if we were only used to reading about her triumphs in other countries. With the opportunity to watch her up close, the badminton ecosystem has changed. The IBL, where Saina was feted like a hero at every venue, was the latest chapter in this enduring saga.

“I cried after the Olympics,” Gopi said in the same interview. “It was happy tears for me. I really miss not winning at the Olympics and that hurt me for a long time. For many years, I got nightmares because of that. For me, to feel part of the glory was very important and it made me feel complete.”

What a perfect gift for a teacher from a student!