Para badminton: Palak Kohli was told ‘career khatm’ after bone tumour diagnosis, but her ‘comeback louder than setback’

The straight-up pragmatism when a boring school teacher asked Palak Kohli to focus on studies and grab a quota available for the disabled, instead of lingering in the playgrounds, had not deterred the para-shuttler when young. She went on to compete at the Tokyo Paralympics.

But pity-soaked whispers of “Palak ka career khatm” (career’s over), after a bone tumour was diagnosed two years ago and she was restricted to a wheelchair, really led to a spiral. The diminutive Jallandhar dynamite could snort off casual condescension about her forearm impediment since age 1 when she expressed a desire to play sport. But the dripping sympathy and being judged as ‘finished’ properly brought out the angry-young-woman energy in her. She’s never understood why people are always in a hurry to draw curtains on others’ sporting careers. “Only an athlete knows the cost of their passion,” she says simply, shushing the ignorants rushing to snip short an athlete’s painstakingly built career.

Recently, Palak confirmed her second successive Paralympic qualification for Paris. It came just months after she won bronze at the Para World Championships. “I resumed after surgery in April 2023. The comeback counts louder than the setback,” she says.

Palak remembers a sheltered childhood, pampered even, in a loving Punjabi family, after her disability was diagnosed. The outside society, she recalls, was diametrically opposite – the pits almost. More than a fair share of indifferent and well-meaninged people she met, stopped her from trying to play sport. “They said it’s not meant for me. I should sit and watch.” Her response was to get deeply attracted to the wildest and speediest team sport she saw – handball. That’s when the deadly dull teacher lectured her to study.

Palak saw her disability quite differently from the world, maybe owing to a positive family and friends who adored her. “I mean, nobody in this world is perfect, I hope able-bodied people know that. They see disability, judge the person, and drive them further into depression.”

She ran into India’s para badminton coach Gaurav Khanna, also a Railways referee, as a complete stranger outside a mall. He told her she “could do wonders in para badminton.” Scarred a tad by the boring teacher’s advice to study, Palak ignored Khanna’s words because of the dissonance they caused in her mind. “I’d scroll past all news of sport on social media because what he said had felt impossible,” she remembers.

But one look at athletes on wheelchairs laughing heartily at Khanna’s Lucknow facility in training, and Palak knew this is what she wanted to do. She’d go to Tokyo as the youngest qualifier. Upon her return though, the tumour was spotted. Surgery followed in 2022. “Career khatm” was declared. But only Palak knew the cost of her passion.

For months on end, the dependency on the wheelchair made her sad. She needed assistance even going to the washroom. She watched others happily gallivant around malls, “I couldn’t even walk. I eagerly wanted to play because it made me happy.”

The first time her racquet made contact with the shuttle as she started out on standing strokes, she was delirious. It felt mighty good. The rhythm and momentum slowly returned. At the World’s she would defeat the Tokyo silver medallist, and her confidence was resurrected. She needs more skills and strokes, power, and aggression. But try not to tell Palak Kohli that she can’t do this. She will judge you for your cerebral imperfection, and being boring.

Palak loves reading and drawing besides badminton. She has a go-to song, which the 21-year-old woman calls “very old”. It’s from the Zaira Wasim-hit Secret Superstar, of 2017. Vocalist Meghna Mishra’s forceful, punchy, and sincere (she was 16 then), “Sapne Re” talks of determinedly pursuing dreams, and like the song, Palak strode forward and had no patience for those with definitive judgments on her career.

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