BACKGROUND

Olympian Abhinav Bindra was born on 28th September, 1982 in Dehra Dun, later his family shifted to Chandigarh, and they have settled here since then. During childhood, his father’s rifles became an obsession with him, spending more and more time with them. People often ask him if he did have a special knack of it! But he does not really do not believe in this ‘born-with-a-talent’ thing. And feels that one has to simply work hard and he can achieve what he wants. He has been for the past four years training for almost six to eight hours a day. It is tough and by the end of the day, one is totally drained of mental and physical energy. So, he does not have many hobbies too. He just watchs a little TV, read a lot of newspapers and is on the Internet a little.

He attributes this ‘Achievement’ mostly to his family support; his grandfather Late Colonel Bir Singh was an excellent hockey player and had played alongside Dhyanchand in the glory pre-Partition days. It was his father, who spotted his natural affinity for guns and has left no stone unturned to provide all the ingredients required to churn out the best out of him. He was the lone crusader, who fought all odds and without any support paved way for the enormous glory for all of us.

It was a slightly modified version of the William Tell Story. When barely seven Years of age, Abhinav Bindra asked one of his many domestic maids to place a bottle on her head. Then, from a distance of 10 meters, the lad too-young to know the portentous implication-took aim and fired his air gun. No harm was done to though. As in 14th century Swiss folklore, the shot found its target. Now a decade later, the 19-year-old shooter only has shadowy memories of that eventful afternoon. But this time, Abhinav knows exactly what he is training his guns at -an Olympic medal. The unassuming, modest soft spoken and incredibly determined Abhinav Bindra comes from Chandigarh, the city beautiful. He inherited the iron will from his father, Dr. A.S Bindra, a well-known industrialist and entrepreneur. The grace, Poise and soft-spoken traits have come from his mom Mrs. Babli Bindra. His best friends are his parents and sister Divya. And he loves to spend most of his time with his family when he is away from his first love - "Rifle".

As a 10 year old, when Abhinav first went to the shooting ranges ‘the more experienced Shooters’ pushed him back. He came back home without even getting to fire a single shot. He had to wait for long hours for his time in all his subsequent visits. It is a different story now, whenever he visits the ranges the crowd paves way for him and yearns to the see young wizard hold the gun and shoot.