Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Being a professional athlete, you are a role model for many striving to make their dream come true, provide us with words of inspiration to help others climb up the ladder of success in this field?
Ms. Heena Sidhu:
I feel if somebody has internal motivation to achieve their dream that is the best sort of motivation you can hope for. I don’t think words of inspiration can actually motivate somebody to do something that they don’t want to do. Yes, sometimes hearing other people’s theory gives you strength and makes you believe that you can also get out of that situation. So from my personal experiences I can say that you really have to keep doing it day in day out, giving up should not be an option in your hook.
When you have the option of giving up, of stoping the learning process, if you have the option to just stop and quit or a take a break or take rest or not to come back to this sport, you already are giving yourself a lot of vigil root and honestly women don’t like to push themselves too much we like comfortable life and if you give yourself reason and you give yourself so much vigil root you are never going to achieve it. So never take it easy, never give up, you always just keep doing it. Following your dream and doing what it takes to reach that certain level is important, if you don’t reach there that’s another thing just keep doing day in day out, as everything in life is a journey nothing is a destination that is something I completely believe.
Life is a journey, people who say I’ll work thirty years then I’m gonna retire I’m gonna work for another few years and I’m gonna retire and have a nice life. So I don’t like this word retirement, life is such a beautiful journey! Why do you wanna retire? Yes, there are certain things you can do when your fifteen years old which you can’t do when you’re forty-five years old but they are so many other things you can do in your forty-five. So you need to keep finding a reason to wake up in the morning, finding a reason to get better, finding your problem areas or areas of improvement which you want to improve and to work on. Be quitting smoking and be quitting alcohol. These are the simple things that common people don’t want to do. For an athlete winning that medal, trying to get better, trying to improve my scores everyday. So it’s always a journey and if you actually look at this way, life will unfold itself in front of you and you will just enjoy this process. So just keep doing it, don’t even think about quitting it, don’t even think about giving up that shouldn’t be in you dictionary.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You have also spoken about how your husband has been a constant source of support and motivation for you. Tell us more about how has he supported you to give your best in shooting?
Ms. Heena Sidhu:
I can give you a small example on this, this was after getting married to Ronak, before getting married I had never given it a thought if I would change my name or not after getting married. But when I got married I became very protective about my name, because I thought I had left everything behind, my family, friends, language, food, everything changed. So when you see so many changes happening, you feel you have only your name that you don’t want to change. As a woman I felt so many changes were happening around me at a young age of 23, and with all these changes I felt it was only me name that I could recognize about myself. So I and Ronak never had a discussion about this, I never said it but he understood it, but not so much the other people. I used to go for these government functions and they would call me Heena Pandit or Heena Sidhu Pandit, like as if they had a right to change my name.
Sometimes people asked me and even my father-in-law that why haven’t I changed my name, which was very offensive. It was such a small thing, but for them they would not understand why a woman would not want to change her name. So the way they perceive you is very different from how you perceive it. I didn’t change my name because I felt protective about it, while they saw arrogance.
This is not a matter of just a name but it has a deeper meaning. I always feel that women who have achieved something great in life are looked at as a role model. We are expected to do everything very well and what happens in your professional career is your problem. But luckily because of the support that I have got form my husband and my in-laws that has helped me, but this thinking of the society needs to be changed. With your medium, this is the first time I have talked about this small little story or experience that I had after getting married, which I hope helps other women to stand up for something that they really believe in. Don’t be ashamed of yourself or your thoughts if you know they are just pure, harmless and a reflection of your soul, stick with it..
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, you won a silver medal in the women’s 10 metre air pistol event, and a Gold medal in the women’s 25 metre air pistol event, breaking the Commonwealth Games record of 38 in winning the gold medal. How do you feel about this incredible achievement?
Ms. Heena Sidhu:
Both, the medals that I won, the silver and the gold. I think they came to the very good performance in the finals especially the twenty-five meter finals because this is my new event and my first individual medal in the event which is also my first Commonwealth gold medal. So I was improving very slowly everyday and I believe that my best output comes on the day of the match and the score of thirty-eight actually one shot broke the records also.
So the performance that I gave I’m very happy with that, the way I kept shooting well in the end even though I had a margin, even then I kept shooting well, other then that for air pistol silver medal I started of a little bit slow that’s how I lost my gold medal. Otherwise I was very hopeful of getting gold medal when I went for the Commonwealth games. But even for the ten meter match the way I came back after almost getting eliminated I kept adding point and I kept increasing my rank that is something I am really proud of and me and Ronak actually worked a lot on the finals to improve my technique in the finals how to handle the pressure and everything and I’m very happy that all that training helped me, perform under pressure and get two medals from this Commonwealth games.
