October 28, 2024

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THE PISTOL QUEEN

ON A SUMMER EVENING in mid-2023, Manu Bhaker sat down for a heart-to-heart meeting with her former coach and mentor, Jaspal Rana, at Starbucks in Khan Market, New Delhi. It was their first meeting in almost two years, after an acrimonious split that would be the talk of the town just before the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She, then world ranked #2 in 10m air pistol, alleged he wasn't giving her enough attention. He, then the national team's pistol coach, said she wasn't his only priority and insisted she compete in only two events as opposed to three at the Tokyo O Games. Come Olympics, Manu inexplicably faltered, unable to cope with the lofty expectations. Rana, unceremoniously sacked three months before the Games, took a chunk of the blame and the public ire for the India squad's lacklustre performance at Tokyo, which saw the much-hyped contingent return with zero medals. That Starbucks meeting, then, was to become a memorable act of reconciliation and a game-changing behind-the-scenes moment in Indian sport. What exactly did Manu tell Rana? "I told him if I want to shoot, I want to shoot only with you," she recounts. "That I am thinking of leaving shooting altogether. That I'd been really trying a lot and it has been difficult. Hausla nahin bacha hai [I don't have much courage left]." Rana, otherwise known to be a stern taskmaster, melted. “To call me in this kind of situation would not have been easy for anyone. If at that age, she could have that courage to call me, then I said I'll be up for it,” says Rana. “There was nothing to lose. We had lost everything.” He had only one precondition. “If we start digging up the past, a lot of things will come out, which will not be good for me, her or the country,” Rana recalls telling her. That meeting would prove to be a turning point in Manu's life. At the Paris Olympics this July-August, she not only won two bronzes to become India's first female shooter to medal but also the first athlete in independent India to win two medals at an Olympics, a milestone that will be tough to beat. This, then, is the inside story of how Manu buried the ghosts of her failure and self-doubt in Tokyo to reinvent herself as the pistol-packing champion at Paris who would do India immensely proud. MOVING ON, SETTING TARGETS That night, Sumedha Bhaker, Manu's mother, who was waiting eagerly for the update, felt a weight off her mind when she saw her daughter's reaction—a huge smile. Sumedha, a former school principal, had always stood behind her daughter. Even now, she is a constant presence at the Karni Singh shooting range in New Delhi, where Manu practises at both the 10m and 25m ranges. A spirited woman, she had herself fired off a series of messages to Rana in March 2021 after he left her daughter in tears at the ISSF World Cup in New Delhi by choosing to wear one of Sumedha's earlier messages on a T-shirt—“Mil gayi khushi na. Congratulations to you… aapko apna ego mubaarak [Are you happy now? Hope your ego is satisfied now”]. Infuriated, Sumedha recalls, “I told him he didn't do right by her, that he had broken her heart, that he'd never find a student as good as her.” So with the coffee diplomacy at the Khan Market cafe, it wasn't just Manu who was starting afresh with Rana, Sumedha, too, was turning the page for the well-being of her daughter. On July 26, 2024, a day before the air pistol competition in Paris, she told Rana that she wanted the Manu-Rana “jodi” to be a “hit”. “Arjun aur Dronarcharya ke roop mein dekhna chahti hoon [I want to see you like Arjun and Dronacharya],” she told india today, recalling the conversation. “Shaayad jis guruji ne itni mehnat karwayee, woh guruji wahaan thhe hi nahin, bhagwan woh khushi dena hi nahin chaahte the [Perhaps the teacher wasn't there in Tokyo, God did not

IN NOEL THE TATAS TRUST

It wasn't just another meeting of the board of the 132-year- old Tata Trusts in Mumbai on October 11. Just two days ago, Ratan Tata, 86, the charismatic chairman emeritus of the Tata Group and chairman of Tata Trusts--the philanthropic giant that has a 66 per cent stake in Tata Sons, the holding company of the $165 billion (Rs 13.8 lakh crore) salt-to-software conglomerate--had passed away. The meeting, held a day after his state funeral, had a significant agenda--to decide on his successor at Tata Trusts. What followed was a "smooth transition", as insiders would put it, with Noel Tata, 67, a trustee on the board and Ratan Tata's half-brother, unanimously elected as the chairman. "Noel Tata's appointment signifies continuity," says H.P. Ranina, Supreme Court lawyer and a close observer of the Tata Group for decades. "Noel has filled the void left by Ratan Tata's demise. The trusts will continue to operate as they have done before." But the significance of the ascent of someone who carries the Tata surname was too big to be missed. Born to Naval Tata, Ratan's father, and his second wife, the Swiss-born Simone Tata (credited with building the Lakme brand, later sold to Hindustan Unilever), Noel has been associated with the Tata Group for over 40 years, currently serving on the boards of its various companies, including as the chairman of the retail arm Trent, the global trading and distribution firm Tata International, durables maker Voltas, and non-banking financial company Tata Investment Corporation. He is also the vice chairman of Tata Steel and Titan Company. "I look forward to carrying on the legacy of Mr Ratan N. Tata and the founders of the Tata Group," Noel, who holds an Irish passport, said in a statement following his appointmentNoel's last executive assignment was as the MD of Tata International between August 2010 and November 2021, where he grew the company's turnover from $500 million (Rs 4,200 crore) to over $3 billion (Rs 25,220 crore). Before this, he served as the MD of Trent for more than 11 years, overseeing its growth from a one-store operation in 1998 to over 800 stores across formats today. By marriage, he is also related to the Mistry family of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, which has an 18.4 per cent stake--the second highest--in Tata Sons. His wife Aloo Tata is the sister of the late Cyrus Mistry-- who had succeeded Ratan Tata as the Tata Group chairman in 2012 before being ousted in 2016. They