Olympics: Archer Dhiraj Bommadevara – Mother Mortgaged Mangalsutra To Buy a Bow

Olympics 2024: Dhiraj Bommadevara once lacked means to buy a bow. Now, he is India's biggest medal hope in archery.

Paris Olympics 2024: Story of archer Dhiraj Bommadevara.

(Photo: PTI/Altered by The Quint)

The once lively residential apartment in Krishnalanka — a mostly serene locality by the banks of the Krishna River in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh — now stands desolate, inhabited only by the melancholy of daily life. A few years ago, it echoed with the joyous ramblings of starry-eyed children. It had a little school on its top floor.

The school was started by Bommadevara Shravan Kumar. Had it not been for this school, his son, archer Dhiraj Bommadevara might never have picked up the bow and arrow. He might never have taken the flight to Paris and participated at the Olympics, which he is about to do, today.

Speaking with The Quint ahead of the momentous occasion, Dhiraj looks back at his childhood. At his father. And, at the school.

That’s an interesting story. My father used to work as a school principal in Sikkim, but when I was just one year old, he returned to Vijayawada. The reason being – my mother could not acclimatise to the Sikkim weather. His plan was to start a business in Vijayawada, but it backfired terribly.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

The story continues:

He had started a lorry business with friends, but having been in service all his life, he was too simple to know the tricks of business. His friends deceived him and he lost all his money. My father wanted me to pursue a sport alongside academics, but he did not have the means. So he decided that instead of paying thousands to a private school, he would start his own little school where I would study, and the profits from the school would be used in my sporting career.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

Now 22, Dhiraj started his archery career 17 years ago. The five-year-old did not know much about the opportunities and possibilities, except that it looked unique.

I was always inclined towards trying unique sports, which not a lot of kids were playing. When I was 5, I saw archery for the first time at the Indira Gandhi Stadium, here in Vijaywada It got me hooked immediately – the bows, arrows, everything. It soon became a hobby, which later turned into an addiction. Even now that I am a professional archer, my go-to thought during leisure is to practice archery.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

The Two Early Setback – Coach’s Untimely Demise and the School’s Dissolution

The initial stumbling block was out of the road, and a five-year-old’s joy knew no bounds. That is, for the next four years, until an ill-fated road accident sparked his first experience of depression.Dhiraj Bommadevara

I started my career at the Cherukuri Volga Lenin Academy, under the guidance of Cherukuri Lenin bhaiya. He was once the coach of the Indian team. Two of his academy students won medals for India at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, for which the Andhra government had organised a felicitation ceremony. While returning from the ceremony he was met with an accident and passed away. For me, he was not just a coach, but an elder brother. I was just 9, I did not know how to react. The next two years was just about going through the motions with no real purpose or motivation. That was a very depressing phase. He was the one who made us believe that India can win an Olympic medal in archery. To date, every single student of Lenin bhaiya wants to win an Olympic medal just to prove him right.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

Dhiraj was back on track in 2012, and remained there for the next three years. Until – you guessed it – another setback. A major one. An absolute body blow, which struck at the very foundation of his family’s financial stability.

There was another setback in 2015. My father’s school was basically a rented floor of an apartment, but in that year, the landlord decided to sell the apartment and once again my family was left with zero income. Around the same time, my father had jaundice, so financially, we were at rock bottom. For two years we stayed in one of my father’s friends’ apartment, who did not charge any rent.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

How Dhiraj's Life Changed in 2017

Despite lacking a steady income, Shravan Kumar refused to hinder his son's progress. Dhiraj's mother, Bommadevara Revathi, made perhaps the most inspiring sacrifice of all — she mortgaged her mangalsutra.The sacrifices eventually paid off, as Dhiraj was offered a stipend in 2017, and three years later, a job with the Indian Army.

My life changed in 2017. I remember how my father had mortgaged my mother’s mangalsutra and borrowed money from his cousin in Germany to buy a new bow. This is an expensive sport, after all. He had told me he was on his last legs financially. It was basically make or break. But fortunately, Olympics Gold Quest (OGQ) came up with an offer when he said they’d take me to Pune and take care of all my training requirements. I would stay at the Army Sports Institute, would not have to pay rent or even for food, and they will also pay me a stipend of Rs 15,000 every month. The only caveat was that I had to leave academics, and I just got enrolled in 11th standard after securing 93% marks in my 10th standard examinations. My father left the decision to me and I have always found archery more alluring than studies, so it was an easy decision. Over the next three years, I participated in many international tournaments and finally got a job offer from Army in 2020.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

Yet Another Setback

Dhiraj thought his path was clear, free of obstacles, but life had other plans.

“There was another problem,” he says.

“Another one?” we asked.

Dhiraj replied:

Oh man! There have been so many. Listen to this now. So, I did not want to quit my studies completely so I did open schooling alongside archery and got myself enrolled at a college as well. The principal was nice, he had told me I did not need to attend classes and could only appear for examinations. But such was my luck and he got replaced by another lady, who hated everything about sports. The exam dates clashed with my competition schedule and she did not budge, so I could not appear.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

Why Recurve, And Not Compound

If you've made it this far, now is a good time to inform you that Dhiraj competes in recurve archery – a fiercely competitive discipline in which Indian athletes have struggled to find recent success. To contextualise – India won 9 archery medals at the previous Asian Games, of which 7 were won by compound archers. Only a couple were won by recurve archers.

On being asked about why he picked the recurve bow, Dhiraj says:

I have always been more interested in recurve archery as here your success is 100% dependent on your skills, whereas in compound, it is 50% skills of the archer and 50% machinery. I am not saying compound archery is easy, but to make progress in recurve archery is a lot more difficult. Moreover, there are only a few compound archers who would claim that they are full-time archers, whereas even the national-level recurve archers are full-time archers. There is no room for part-timers here, such is the level of competition.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

He adds:

Recurve archery is a sport that requires enormous practice. I practice a minimum of 6 hours every day, which can go up to 8-9 hours. My practice schedule is spread in three parts – the morning session which is from 9am to 12 noon, the afternoon session which is usually from 3pm to 6pm, and the occasional night session which is 9pm to 10:30pm. The only leisure time I get is on Sundays, which I usually spend watching K-dramas.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

The Initial Heartbreaks

Much of Dhiraj’s achievements have happened over the last few years. At the dawn of his career, however, there were challenges aplenty.

He recollects two incidents in particular:

The first sporting heartbreak I had was ahead of the 2018 Youth Olympics. Two of us had earned a quota and I was initially told there would be a trial to determine who would be sent. But for some reason that I still don’t know, the other guy was sent. My next goal was to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, but I stood 4th and missed out by a place. So, both of my first two dreams as an archer were crushed.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

Asian Games – Both Pinnacle & Nadir

The Hangzhou Asian Games saw the Indian men’s compound team – comprising Dhiraj, Atanu Das and Tushar Shelke – winning the silver medal. Dhiraj was only partly content with the achievement, as he believes he would have won an individual medal as well, had it not been for a couple of mistakes in the quarter-final tie.

I was somewhat satisfied, because I had finally won a medal after so many setbacks. But still not completely satisfied, as I wanted to win a gold medal in the individual category. but made some mistakes.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

Dhiraj elaborates on how the Asian Games represented both the pinnacle and the nadir of his career:

Both the highest and lowest points of my career were at the Asian Games. The lowest was once when I had two unexpected misses. I dreamt of a medal but committed a huge blunder. That made me nervous for the team event, because a blunder in an individual event means I am letting myself down, but something similar in the team event would have meant I was letting my nation down, which I could never even imagine. But my teammates consoled me by saying ‘do teer kharab maarne se tu kharab archer nahi ban gaya’ (two poor attempts don’t make a bad archer). Forget the opponents, I first had to win a fight against myself to win that silver medal.

Dhiraj Bommadevara

The Olympics Goal

The Olympics, being the pinnacle sporting event, presents a challenge unlike any other Dhiraj has faced. There is, after all, a reason why India has never won an archery medal in the Olympics.

As the highest-ranked Indian archer, standing 12th in the World Archery rankings, Dhiraj shoulders the nation's hopes. Yet, his primary goal is deeply personal—to make his parents proud.

He concludes:

My only target for the Paris Olympics is to give my best. And to do that, I first have to believe that I am the best in the world. Medals and podiums come later, the primary objective is to have that belief in yourself. When you're setting a medal as your goal, you are limiting yourself. I want to be limitless. Besides that, I also want to make my parents proud. They encouraged me to do archery despite being from Southern India, where parents mostly want their kids to become doctors or engineers. They have supported me through thick and thin, so if I can return an iota of it, it will be great.

Dhiraj Bommadevara