Gold Medal blog: Z level security
By Suneetha.B

Abhinav Bindra, India’s ‘Man with the Golden Bullet’, is the epitome of taciturnity in front of the media.  His lack of dramatics and extremely calm temperament was eulogised as the result of nerves of steel and immense concentration. Abhinav played down the huge hype that followed his historic achievement saying that he was ‘just a normal guy’, but declined to play to the audience except while holding his rifle. Abhinav prefers blogging to press conferences.

He didn’t break down and weep while the Olympic moment crowned him, he didn’t wax sentimental when the Indian national anthem played and he didn’t play favourites with the press either.

I remember reading somewhere how he just shrugged when Nirupama Roy, the Indian High Commissioner to China, asked him whether he had a ‘blast’ on the day he won the gold medal. She went on to ask him whether he felt a national hero and on top of the world, the man of steel just repeated his punch line ‘Not really, I am just normal’. His expressions were said never to change when the thrilled journos piled him with questions, although he obliged every single one of them.

One almost started to believe that he was NOT ‘a normal guy’; after all normal guys did show some reaction. Well, that was just till I chanced upon his blog.

Here is a real surprise! The guy handles words as well as he does his bullets and almost always reaches the target, in this case, your heart. Hey, he is normal after all. He has written up his Olympic moments, the before and after thoughts and feelings very well on his blog. He talks about the Z category security he got when he returned the victor and expresses his perceptions of ‘normalcy’ very eloquently in ‘I won the gold and my world has exploded’. He even jokes about the threat to his life saying ‘he could call these guys over for a shooting match’. The guy loves his home which is his comfort zone and even talks about his pets, smiling away at their reaction to his Olympic medal. He sums that up as a bit of a relief ‘to be honest at last’.

Z category security is reserved for our Prime Minister, President and other VVIPs.

Well, he may not give you quotes to frame, but certainly a refreshing honesty and simplicity admirable in all great heroes.

Abhinav Bindra is India’s first Olympic gold medallist in an individual event, and his event is the 10m Air Rifle. Abhinav is a Doon School alumnus, and later studied in St.Stephen’s in Chandigarh. He has a BBA from the University of Colorado.  He belongs to an affluent Sikh family of Mohali in Punjab.  Abhinav has been awarded the Arjuna Award in 2000, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khelratna Award in 2001, both prestigious for sportsmen in India.   His blog can be accessed at this link