[Applause]
today I’m gonna be sharing a story about
a quiet little girl who was afraid of
even dipping her feet in the water and
her journey and how she became India’s
fastest ever female soon but before I
begin I want to ask everyone in the
audience how many of you all have ever
heard or ever been asked to follow your
passion if I can have a show of hands
that will be helpful so I look around
the audience today and I can see almost
every one of you have either been told
that before or have heard it in some
shape or form but what is passion and
what does it mean and how do we find it
we’ve all about this term because it
tends to be used as a catch-all phrase
to define the keys of success and
speaking about passion my journey into
competitive swimming was anything but
passion it wasn’t out of choice it was
out of a series of comedies and
opportunities and I say comedy because
if easy to look back on one’s journey
and see the humor and the events leading
up to something
I say opportunity because every single
day each and every one of us are
presented in some shape or form with an
opportunity some of these I am may
incite and some of them are disguised as
something else we can either choose to
take these opportunities or walk away
from them and sometimes walking away
from an opportunity can lead to
something better
I was never
an outgoing person as a kid I was shy
quiet but I was always active and I
liked being around people and every week
in the summer months my family and
friends used to venture out to the
swimming pool and while my friends were
jumping in and out of the pool and
having a great time
I put on the other hand was quite
content standing outside the pool
dipping my finger into the fountain that
was poolside this happened week after
week for months and one of those days
one of the adults in an attempt to help
me get rid of my fear of the water took
me into the pool the minute I got in I
started playing my arms and kicking my
legs and doing everything possible to
get out of the pool and one of those
breasts dropkicks landed on this
person’s arm
I think EBC let me go and he looked up
at my mom and jokingly said chika has a
very strong breaststroke kick someday
she will make a great swimmer and the
idea of this comment was not lost on my
mom as the sole focus behind that strong
breaststroke kick was me trying to do
everything possible to get as far away
from the swimming pool as I could the
next year I was seven years old and my
mom enrolled my brother and I in
rollerskating classes we had done this
for a few months and then we were
registered in one of the local
competitions the two categories of age
groups was above it and below it and
this competition was just a few weeks
after my eighth birthday and so I was
registered in the above eight category
the race began and not only that I can’t
last but I got laughed by every single
other competitor and once the race was
over
we found out that when the organizers
said underage they went eight and under
and I had just competed in the wrong
category so that was the end of
rollerskating just how the kicking
incident was the end of my schooling as
a child I enjoyed running and would
participate in school championships and
I would win so I wanted to be a runner
my mom took me to one of the premier
athletic academies at midnight
[Music]
unfortunately we were told that I could
not enroll because they took kids only
after the age of nine and I was still
eight at the time so that was the end of
running as they say when one door closes
another opens what the caterpillar sees
as the end of his journey
the butterfly sees is the beginning and
that was my foray into competitive
swimming my younger brother was
diagnosed with severe asthma and he
would be hospitalized every few months
and the doctor recommended that he take
up swimming and do it regularly in an
attempt to help improve his lung
capacity since I could be left at home
my mom took me along to the pool as well
and two years later after that teaching
incident we were back at the swimming
pool for attempt number two and learning
to swim on our first date my brother was
extremely excited and he even jumped
into the pool with his socks on I on the
other hand took my time by the end of
that first session I was comfortable
clearly something had changed in those
two years I think one thing led to
another and the next year at the age
90 I want my first national medal in the
50-meter breaststroke
I guess the kick was wrong after all
at the age of 13 I was the fastest
swimmer in India in my event and at the
age of 19 I was the only swim out to
represent India at the 2004 Athens
Olympics when I look back and reminisce
upon these Olympics in general the
opening ceremony walking alongside my
teammates walking behind the Indian flag
it brings my emotions that are very hard
to describe and for an athlete being
able to represent your country at the
Olympics is the pinnacle of your career
the Olympics are unlike any other event
you have 10,000 athletes from all over
the world and each one the best in their
respective sports and all these athletes
are living together eating together
competing together making friendships
and building memories and that’s
something that I have not seen or
throughout my sports career as well as
beyond I’ve had the opportunity to learn
from all its ups and downs and today I’d
like to share with you three messages
which today allow me to speak out new
opportunities and also pursue my goals
the first one being successful at
something doesn’t mean you always have
to love it at first most of my successes
have evolved through persevering through
some
I did not necessarily enjoy or fully
understand at first some people asked me
how did you know that suing was the
but this does not happen overnight it
requires hard work commitment and
perseverance not just to the task at
hand but to the journey and the whole
when I won my first national medal at
the age of nine my mom and I have both
had tears in our eyes hers were out of
happiness and mine were because I did
not like the color of the ribbon on that
bronze medal that I had just won and my
mom looked at me and she said if you
want the color of the ribbon on the gold
pendant you have to work harder and
those simple words transformed my life
and it’s something that I abided by
throughout my 15 year swing competitive
career message to that I’d like to share
is great triumphs are sometimes hidden
behind our worst failures in 2008 I was
attempting at trying to qualify for my
second Olympics the event was the
50-meter freestyle and typically this
lasts less than 25 seconds and I have
trained as hard as I possibly could and
I was feeling the strongest that I could
ever be both physically as
and I was pretty confident of making
that qualifying time the race started
and was going great but then it happened
at the 35 meter mark I swallowed water
and I started coughing I finished the
race and I looked up at my time and I
just broken a national record but I had
also just missed the Olympic qualifying
time but point zero five of a second and
for those of you who don’t know what
point zero five is per second is that is
too late so I had just missed the
qualifying time by that I was
heartbroken
I had just failed I failed to qualify
for my second Olympics that day was ten
while the emotions as represented on the
slide the negative emotions of missing
that qualifying mark well those have
faded away that record that I created
ten years ago still stands unbroken as I
wrap up let’s move on to 0.3 which is
don’t only follow your passion and this
is one of my personal favorites don’t
only follow your passion let your
as I decided to end my competitive
swimming career the competitive aspect
of my sport stopped but my passion for
the sport did not as an athlete I was
always interested in the inner workings
of the human body and that got me
interested in the Biosciences and these
dual passions or interests helped me and
motivated me to pursue both my academics
as well as my sports simultaneously
I was always an advocate for clean sport
and also preserving the integrity of
hard work and so when I graduated from
college I went on to work at the US
anti-doping agency on that science team
and this was exceptionally exciting for
me because I was just one of a handful
of other fields from all over the world
that had been given this opportunity to
be a part to directly be a part of the
global and a doping sports movement and
my transition from the pool to
anti-doping science to help sport
technology would not have been possible
if my passion had not followed me
in today’s day we’re all in such a rush
to find our passion and what are we
going to do we tend to focus on and
first you the things that are passionate
about or enjoy in that moment but
moments change and so to our immediate
five years so how do we find this
passion in these ever-changing ideas and
moments perhaps we could take a step
back maybe even revisit ideas that we
didn’t necessarily enjoy at the time and
let them grow on us in keeping with the
theme of today’s event connecting the
dots take any opportunity that comes
your way there’s learning in every
opportunity and in every situation and
in the future when you look back these
dots would have connected themselves and
this will showcase your unique journey
and reveal your true calling or your
true passion in the words of the late
Steve Jobs the dots do not connect
looking forward they always connect
looking backwards and as I stand here
today and look back and all the dots
that connected themselves through my
journey right from being that shy quiet
girl to be Who I am today I know that
it’s even one of those dots
had not connected in a way that they did
I would not be standing here as India’s
fastest female swimmer
[Applause] [Music]
today I’m gonna be sharing a story about
a quiet little girl who was afraid of
even dipping her feet in the water and
her journey and how she became India’s
fastest ever female soon but before I
begin I want to ask everyone in the
audience how many of you all have ever
heard or ever been asked to follow your
passion if I can have a show of hands
that will be helpful so I look around
the audience today and I can see almost
every one of you have either been told
that before or have heard it in some
shape or form but what is passion and
what does it mean and how do we find it
we’ve all about this term because it
tends to be used as a catch-all phrase
to define the keys of success and
speaking about passion my journey into
competitive swimming was anything but
passion it wasn’t out of choice it was
out of a series of comedies and
opportunities and I say comedy because
if easy to look back on one’s journey
and see the humor and the events leading
up to something
I say opportunity because every single
day each and every one of us are
presented in some shape or form with an
opportunity some of these I am may
incite and some of them are disguised as
something else we can either choose to
take these opportunities or walk away
from them and sometimes walking away
from an opportunity can lead to
something better
I was never
an outgoing person as a kid I was shy
quiet but I was always active and I
liked being around people and every week
in the summer months my family and
friends used to venture out to the
swimming pool and while my friends were
jumping in and out of the pool and
having a great time
I put on the other hand was quite
content standing outside the pool
dipping my finger into the fountain that
was poolside this happened week after
week for months and one of those days
one of the adults in an attempt to help
me get rid of my fear of the water took
me into the pool the minute I got in I
started playing my arms and kicking my
legs and doing everything possible to
get out of the pool and one of those
breasts dropkicks landed on this
person’s arm
I think EBC let me go and he looked up
at my mom and jokingly said chika has a
very strong breaststroke kick someday
she will make a great swimmer and the
idea of this comment was not lost on my
mom as the sole focus behind that strong
breaststroke kick was me trying to do
everything possible to get as far away
from the swimming pool as I could the
next year I was seven years old and my
mom enrolled my brother and I in
rollerskating classes we had done this
for a few months and then we were
registered in one of the local
competitions the two categories of age
groups was above it and below it and
this competition was just a few weeks
after my eighth birthday and so I was
registered in the above eight category
the race began and not only that I can’t
last but I got laughed by every single
other competitor and once the race was
over
we found out that when the organizers
said underage they went eight and under
and I had just competed in the wrong
category so that was the end of
rollerskating just how the kicking
incident was the end of my schooling as
a child I enjoyed running and would
participate in school championships and
I would win so I wanted to be a runner
my mom took me to one of the premier
athletic academies at midnight
[Music]
unfortunately we were told that I could
not enroll because they took kids only
after the age of nine and I was still
eight at the time so that was the end of
running as they say when one door closes
another opens what the caterpillar sees
as the end of his journey
the butterfly sees is the beginning and
that was my foray into competitive
swimming my younger brother was
diagnosed with severe asthma and he
would be hospitalized every few months
and the doctor recommended that he take
up swimming and do it regularly in an
attempt to help improve his lung
capacity since I could be left at home
my mom took me along to the pool as well
and two years later after that teaching
incident we were back at the swimming
pool for attempt number two and learning
to swim on our first date my brother was
extremely excited and he even jumped
into the pool with his socks on I on the
other hand took my time by the end of
that first session I was comfortable
clearly something had changed in those
two years I think one thing led to
another and the next year at the age
90 I want my first national medal in the
50-meter breaststroke
I guess the kick was wrong after all
at the age of 13 I was the fastest
swimmer in India in my event and at the
age of 19 I was the only swim out to
represent India at the 2004 Athens
Olympics when I look back and reminisce
upon these Olympics in general the
opening ceremony walking alongside my
teammates walking behind the Indian flag
it brings my emotions that are very hard
to describe and for an athlete being
able to represent your country at the
Olympics is the pinnacle of your career
the Olympics are unlike any other event
you have 10,000 athletes from all over
the world and each one the best in their
respective sports and all these athletes
are living together eating together
competing together making friendships
and building memories and that’s
something that I have not seen or
throughout my sports career as well as
beyond I’ve had the opportunity to learn
from all its ups and downs and today I’d
like to share with you three messages
which today allow me to speak out new
opportunities and also pursue my goals
the first one being successful at
something doesn’t mean you always have
to love it at first most of my successes
have evolved through persevering through
some
I did not necessarily enjoy or fully
understand at first some people asked me
how did you know that suing was the
but this does not happen overnight it
requires hard work commitment and
perseverance not just to the task at
hand but to the journey and the whole
when I won my first national medal at
the age of nine my mom and I have both
had tears in our eyes hers were out of
happiness and mine were because I did
not like the color of the ribbon on that
bronze medal that I had just won and my
mom looked at me and she said if you
want the color of the ribbon on the gold
pendant you have to work harder and
those simple words transformed my life
and it’s something that I abided by
throughout my 15 year swing competitive
career message to that I’d like to share
is great triumphs are sometimes hidden
behind our worst failures in 2008 I was
attempting at trying to qualify for my
second Olympics the event was the
50-meter freestyle and typically this
lasts less than 25 seconds and I have
trained as hard as I possibly could and
I was feeling the strongest that I could
ever be both physically as
and I was pretty confident of making
that qualifying time the race started
and was going great but then it happened
at the 35 meter mark I swallowed water
and I started coughing I finished the
race and I looked up at my time and I
just broken a national record but I had
also just missed the Olympic qualifying
time but point zero five of a second and
for those of you who don’t know what
point zero five is per second is that is
too late so I had just missed the
qualifying time by that I was
heartbroken
I had just failed I failed to qualify
for my second Olympics that day was ten
while the emotions as represented on the
slide the negative emotions of missing
that qualifying mark well those have
faded away that record that I created
ten years ago still stands unbroken as I
wrap up let’s move on to 0.3 which is
don’t only follow your passion and this
is one of my personal favorites don’t
only follow your passion let your
as I decided to end my competitive
swimming career the competitive aspect
of my sport stopped but my passion for
the sport did not as an athlete I was
always interested in the inner workings
of the human body and that got me
interested in the Biosciences and these
dual passions or interests helped me and
motivated me to pursue both my academics
as well as my sports simultaneously
I was always an advocate for clean sport
and also preserving the integrity of
hard work and so when I graduated from
college I went on to work at the US
anti-doping agency on that science team
and this was exceptionally exciting for
me because I was just one of a handful
of other fields from all over the world
that had been given this opportunity to
be a part to directly be a part of the
global and a doping sports movement and
my transition from the pool to
anti-doping science to help sport
technology would not have been possible
if my passion had not followed me
in today’s day we’re all in such a rush
to find our passion and what are we
going to do we tend to focus on and
first you the things that are passionate
about or enjoy in that moment but
moments change and so to our immediate
five years so how do we find this
passion in these ever-changing ideas and
moments perhaps we could take a step
back maybe even revisit ideas that we
didn’t necessarily enjoy at the time and
let them grow on us in keeping with the
theme of today’s event connecting the
dots take any opportunity that comes
your way there’s learning in every
opportunity and in every situation and
in the future when you look back these
dots would have connected themselves and
this will showcase your unique journey
and reveal your true calling or your
true passion in the words of the late
Steve Jobs the dots do not connect
looking forward they always connect
looking backwards and as I stand here
today and look back and all the dots
that connected themselves through my
journey right from being that shy quiet
girl to be Who I am today I know that
it’s even one of those dots
had not connected in a way that they did
I would not be standing here as India’s
fastest female swimmer
[Applause] [Music]
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