Bespoke Diaries
- Feb 15, 2023
- 3 min read

Being smaller doesn’t matter but dreaming bigger matters | Nithya Sre Sivan

I was born and brought up in a very fast-developing city Hosur in Tamil Nadu. I’m an International Para-Badminton Player currently world rank 1 in the Women’s Singles SH6 category. I was a very naughty girl in primary school and with years passing everyone started teasing me about my height. But at that time I couldn’t do anything except crying, lying on my father’s lap.

Maybe because of this, I was so introverted in a few years of my schooling. I was surrounded by a sportive environment where we play all kinds of games in a small street. My favorite sport used to be cricket as my brother is a district player and my dad too is a cricket lover. Both of them were having so much knowledge on sports. One day during the time of Rio Olympics 2016, we used to watch all the sports which were telecasted live on TV channels, and from that, I started watching Badminton.

I started admiring the game and the players. I became a little fan of Lindan at that time. I read a lot of news articles etc about him on the internet and used to wonder how a man can be like this. So many players lifting their country’s flag and making their country proud I wanted to do something in a way where people of my country will feel proud and happy seeing their power in between other countries. But I had no idea what I’ll do.

At this time few of my street mates including my brother joined a Badminton academy and I was sent to a classical dance school to learn Bharatanatyam. Somehow after so many days of waiting, I got my day to play badminton.

I was taken to an academy where my dad’s friends used to train children. Due to financial difficulties, I was sent to the academy just twice a week. But my interest on that was more as I’m an average student and I don’t have much interest in studies. When it’s Monday students used to be very fresh in school and I used to wait for Saturday so that I can go and play. After 2 years when I got Silver in the District championship, my coach told dad that she can do more good with regular practice.

Then I was sent to the academy to play every day directly from the school. I started getting more medals in the district and participated state championship once. By this time it was already 4 years with my badminton and yes it is tough when I go to state meets.

Before the lockdown in 2020, we came to know about Para-Badminton through my dad’s colleague who was a para-badminton state player. In the starting dad was thinking about whether to make me play or not. Then my coach forced him to send an entry for the Tamil Nadu para-badminton state championship.

Then I went and participated there. After that through the secretary, I got a chance to train under Shri Gaurav Khanna Sir (Head coach-team India and Dronacharya awardee). Then I shifted to Lucknow for my professional training. After that, I achieved so many things and I have answered all the people who made fun of me those days.

I just used to believe that you can succeed if you work hard to achieve your goal or passion. I have never thought that I’ll stand here in this high holding our country’s flag.

Now I feel that