She would leave home at 6.30am. Take a train to Uttarpara and head to a gymnasium there. She’d return to her CJ Block home by noon, rest till 3, and once again set off for the gym, to practise till 8.30. She’d return home by 10.30pm.
This is how Anindita Das spent her summer holidays. Now that school has resumed, she has added school and tuition to the routine, but practice time is deducted only marginally. And yes, once in a while, the 16-year-old teaches zumba to others. “That’s what it takes to become a national champion,” says the girl who earlier this year bagged gold from the Gymnastics Mela held by Gujarat Gymnastics Association under the Gymnastics Federation of India.
Anindita is preparing for another event in Uttarakhand in August now.
“There are excuses galore... On some days it’s impossibly hot, on other days I’m tired, or just don’t feel like getting on with it. But then I think of my goal and the excuses fade away,” says Anindita, a Class X student of a Beleghata school.
Anindita’s father is no more, mother has remarried, and so she and her younger sister live in the garage of a CJ Block house, where her grandparents Joydev and Kalpana Kundu are caretakers. She has been living here since she was five months old.
“I began learning dance at the age of three and my teacher, who noted that I was quite flexible, asked dida to enroll me for gymnastics,” Anindita says. Her first gymnastics school was Duttabagan Sishu Mahal Club near Lake Town. After that she changed her coaching centre multiple times, including at Sports Authority of India (SAI), Salt Lake, which got discontinued due to the pandemic.
Now she trains at Uttarpara Sarathi Club and Uttarpara Gymnasium Club under coaches Monoj Naskar and Arkadeep Makhal, while she considers coach Pranab Kumar Bose of the Duttabagan centre her mentor. She started winning district-level medals from 2017 and, some months ago, won gold in the tumbling event at the Gymnastics Mela in Surat.
She shows a video of her winning floor routine in which she smoothly performed a series of eight elements before landing. “The teams from Haryana and Maharashtra were very strong too,” says the fan of American gymnast Simone Biles, who has 11 Olympic medals to her name. “I was too young to understand the Olympics when Dipa Karmakar went for it. But I’ve met Pranati Nayak, who represented India there in 2021. She and other senior gymnasts inspire us a lot.”
It is Anindita’s ultimate goal to be an Olympian, but she’s not jumping the gun. “I want to concentrate on national events now,” says the girl who is focused beyond her years. “These medals should help me get jobs later. I’ve already started judging gymnastic tournaments for juniors and am open to becoming a coach too. I have to keep my options open. I want to own a house and a car. How long should I depend on my grandparents?”
Once Anindita returned from Surat with gold, her neighbourhood buzzed with joy. “Our landlady treated me and gifted me money, the staff at the roll shop and iron shop opposite Tank 9 congratulated me, and Susmita ma’am arranged felicitations,” she smiles.
Neighbour Susmita Mukherjee used to be Anindita’s teacher at her primary school at Bidhannagar Ramakrishna Vivekananda Kendra. “Ma’am arranged to have me felicitated at the school, and at a nature festival in BJ Block I was felicitated by mayor Krishna Chakraborty. I also got to shake hands with (MLA and minister) Sujit Bose and (MP and former cricketer) Yusuf Pathan,” gushes the cricket fan.
Anindita’s grandma Kalpana accompanies her to practice and tournaments, and her mother Mita Das runs a tea and snack stall in Sector V. “My mom gets chips and chocolates, but my strict diet allows me to have very little of them,” she smiles. “My mother keeps asking me to study, as I’ll be appearing for Madhyamik this time. I score 60-70 per cent in school and like math and English.”
But she is clear that her career will be in gymnastics and now has her eyes set on the Trampoline & Tumbling Gymnastics National Championship 2025-26 on August 8.
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