While growing up, Riya Mukherjee had only heard stories of her father’s genius on a badminton court, but had never actually seen him play. There aren’t any videos either, just tales of how Inderjeet would glide on court, leave opponents flummoxed with wristy strokes, and then finish a rally with finesse. However, three years before Riya was born, Inderjeet would lose mobility in his playing arm after a car accident. At 28, his career came to an abrupt end.

On Sunday, Inderjeet was a touch nervous as 19-year-old Riya, unseeded, played the women’s singles final at the Tata Open India International Challenge against eighth seed Ruthvika Shivani Gudde. Riya had advanced from the qualifiers to reach the final of her first-ever international event. Inderjeet, whose career was overshadowed by the presence of greats like Prakash Padukone and Syed Modi, was joyous that his daughter was living up to her potential.

Riya lost 21-12 23-21 in 40 minutes but irrespective of the result, Inderjeet believed this was a sign of things to come.
Inderjeet was expected to achieve greatness in the sport. He had won the junior national championship in 1983. In the same year, he won a bronze at the junior Asian Badminton Championship. His international appearances were limited because of the era he was part of but he was seen as someone who was brimming with potential.

“At that time, there weren’t many international tournaments that you could go abroad for. For the ones that existed, only two players were allowed, and Prakash Padukone and Syed Modi were the two main players at that time,” Inderjeet says.

“After I won the 1983 junior national championships, I wanted to play in the seniors but the state federation didn’t take too kindly to my decision and they banned me for two years (1984, 1985). I won several senior All-India ranking events when I got back to playing in 1985. I played in the 1987 South Asian Games (SAF Games). Prakash Padukone was also a part of the team and we won the gold in the team event. I won bronze in the singles.”

Eight fractures in his right arm ended his career. In 1996, the family was driving back from Puri in Orissa, with Inderjeet in the driver’s seat. “It was night and I was tired. I dozed off and my arm was outside the window. An oil truck was passing by and hit my arm,” recalls Inderjeet.

Inderjeet did manage to get the car to a stop, and none of the other passengers were injured. Only his arm was broken in eight places. Doctors managed to prevent the need for amputation by inserting metal rods to keep the limb in shape. But the budding shuttler had lost all ability to play. “I can’t move my wrist, and there is only minimal movement in the fingers.”

SM Arif, a Dronacharya Awardee, who coached Inderjeet back then and now coaches Riya, believes that the accident robbed him of a few titles. “ It was quite a loss for us because he had just started peaking when the accident happened,” Arif says.
In fact, Inderjeet himself did not want Riya to play the sport. “I was in a constant dilemma,” he says. “I had seen hope, then lost it. I didn’t want her through that grind.”

It was her mother who took her to a local club when she was 11. “I was in Raigad for some time on work. Her mother always felt Riya might have inherited some playing talent, so she took her without telling me. When I got back, Riya had already started winning matches,” Inderjeet says.

He then became her first coach. The injury to his right arm forced him to learn how to spar with his left arm. At the Babu Banarasi Das Badminton Academy in Lucknow, Riya also trained with the boys.

“Boys have just one style, they keep smashing. But I learned to counter their shots,” she says. “They’d hit as hard as they could, but I’d get it back into play, so my defence became quite solid,” she says. For the past seven months though, she’s been training in Hyderabad, where she’s been working more on her court-craft and physical strength.

“She is a good stroke player and reads the game well,” says her coach Arif, who has trained the likes of Pulella Gopichand and Jwala Gutta. “She has to now work on her fitness and speed.”

Slowly and steadily, Riya has been making progress. In 2012, she was the sub-junior national champion, before twice finishing with bronze at the junior event in 2015 and 2016. In 2014, she had won her first international medal, when she partnered Satwiksairaj Rankireddy to a silver medal in the mixed doubles event of the Under-17 Asian Championships.