She rarely attends parties and when she does, dessert is a no-no.

By 6am, when most 19-year-olds are reluctant to leave their beds, she is done running several rounds of the greens at the Bengal Rowing Club.

Meet Mayurakshi Mukherjee, one of the more promising young rowers in the country and a member of the national team that won 12 medals at last month's Asian Indoor Rowing Championships in Pattaya, Thailand.

A first-year electronics and communication engineering student at the Heritage Institute of Technology, Mayurakshi competed in two team events of the championships and bagged a silver and a bronze.

Indoor rowing involves a machine called ergometer that is used to simulate the watercraft rowing experience. Starting as a comprehensive practice technique, indoor rowing has increased in stature and is now considered a sport in its own right.

Mayurakshi considers single sculls - designed for one person who propels the boat with two oars - as her forte. But she competes in other events depending on what the team expects of her, coach Sudip Naha, who has been mentoring her since 2008, said.

In Pattaya, Mayurakshi's events were the 500m mixed sprints and 2km doubles. In the 500m mixed sprints, two male and female rowers sit on separate ergometers. All the machines are synced. The time each machine takes in covering a virtual distance of 500m is recorded. Then, the net average or cumulative time is calculated. That is considered the time clocked by the team.

In the 2km doubles, the distance is more and there are two female rowers in each team whose cumulative score decides the winner.

The Indian team was tied in second place with South Korea in the mixed event. Both teams clocked 1.33 minutes while Thailand won the gold by finishing the race in 1.30 minutes.

In the doubles event, the Indian team came third, clocking 7.38 minutes.

Taipei won silver, with seven minutes and 33.8 seconds and Korea bagged gold at 7.20 minutes.

"It was really close in the doubles," Mayurakshi said. "Till 1,000m, Taipei and India were neck and neck. But in the end, their endurance paid off."

The teenager, who is 5ft and 7.5 inches, lives in Bhowanipore and did her schooling at South Point. She has been rowing since 11.

"In school, I was more interested in basketball, swimming and karate. A couple of my basketball teammates introduced me to rowing in 2008. There has been no looking back since then."

Her first big break came in 2010 when she won bronze in double sculls in the national sub juniors in Roorkee. "That was the push I needed. I was happy but I knew I could do better," she said.

In the next edition of the sub juniors she was part of the gold-winning Bengal team. Since then, she has won several medals in national, state-level and school-level tournaments.

In 2013, she graduated to the junior level and won silver in the nationals in single sculls, her first medal in her favourite event.

Next year, she had to take a 10-month break to take her Class XII exams. In 2016, she won bronze in single sculls in the national championships for seniors - a first in 25 years for Bengal.

For the Asian Rowing Championships in Pattaya, Mayurakshi and the other participants had to go through an extensive selection process.

Sixteen rowers, five girls and 11 boys, went to a camp in Hyderabad after the first round of selections in Calcutta. There, eight boys and four girls got selected for the Asian Championships.

The team, coached by Dronacharya Ismail Baig, left for Thailand on October 26. The 500m mixed sprints were held on October 29 and the 2km doubles a day later.

Speaking about handling pressure, the teenager said: "In the 500m event, you hardly get time to get tensed. The 2km event takes longer, so some tension is bound to creep in. But I tried to channel it into performing better.... used it like a driving force."

She attributes her achievements to coach Naha who was himself a successful rower.

He realised her potential the first day he saw her rowing. "She is a natural athlete. Her height is an added advantage," he said.

Now, Mayurakshi has her eyes set on next year's senior nationals that would serve as a selection platform for the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.

Naha has bigger dreams, though. "I see her as a medal prospect in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics."

But what else apart from rowing? "Films, especially superhero ones. Marvel films are my favourite and I simply love Captain America," she said.