New Delhi, Sep 14 (IANS): When Niraj Kumar finished Class 12, his parents were preparing for the next conventional step in his education — college. Niraj, however, had a different plan. He wanted the money his family had saved for his college education to be spent on a rifle, convinced that shooting could become his career.
“I told them, buy me the rifle. I will see the college degree later. First, I have to shoot,” Niraj recalled.
The rifle, costing around ₹3-3.5 lakh, was a sizeable investment for a family with no sporting background. But for Niraj, it was an investment in a dream that had taken shape after he was introduced to shooting through the National Cadet Corps (NCC). Niraj first picked up a rifle at the age of 14 in 2014. His father, a retired Army officer, had enrolled him in NCC at school with the hope that it would eventually help his son pursue a career in the armed forces.
Sport was not new to Niraj. He had played kabaddi, table tennis and basketball during his school years, but shooting soon emerged as the discipline that fascinated him most. Through NCC, he was introduced to the 50m Rifle Prone event and began participating in Inter-Battalion and Inter-Group competitions. As medals followed, an early interest gradually turned into a serious ambition.
By the time he reached the pre-national level, Niraj had begun to see shooting as more than just a sport. He started dreaming of building a career around it, with an Olympic medal becoming his long-term target. Getting his parents to share that belief, however, was another matter.
With no sportsperson in the family, his parents were understandably wary of the uncertainty surrounding a sporting career. Shooting also required expensive equipment, making the decision even more difficult. Niraj knew that he first had to demonstrate that his ambition was more than youthful enthusiasm.
NCC provided him with a rifle until his first national competition, but he would need his own equipment thereafter. At one point, Niraj started teaching younger NCC cadets, using the final 15-20 minutes of their training sessions to practise himself.
He also competed with rented rifles, but soon discovered the limitations of trying to progress without his own equipment. After one such competition, he returned home frustrated and began wondering whether it was time to give up.
“That was my breaking point. I thought either I will do it with my own rifle, or I will stop. Otherwise, my time would just be wasted,” he said.
His parents eventually decided to back their son’s conviction and bought him the rifle. The investment soon began to pay off. Niraj won a junior silver medal at the National Championships in 2016 before claiming junior gold in 2017.
Those performances also brought him closer to another ambition that had taken root during his NCC days — joining the Indian Navy. After his first national medal, Niraj approached a Navy coach and expressed his desire to join the force through shooting. He was told he was too young at the time and would need to return after proving himself with another medal.
He did exactly that. After winning national gold the following year, Niraj joined the Indian Navy through its sports quota in January 2018. For his parents, his entry into the Navy offered the financial and professional security they had wanted for their son. For Niraj, it meant he could continue chasing his ambitions as a shooter with a stable platform behind him.
“They told me that now my future is secure from their side and that I could fly as high as I wanted,” Niraj says.
His next challenge came with his transition from the 50m Rifle Prone event to the more demanding 50m Rifle 3 Positions discipline, which requires athletes to compete in kneeling, prone and standing positions. The transition was not easy. In the initial stages, Niraj did not have a dedicated coach guiding him throughout the process. Instead, he took an unconventional approach to understanding the discipline.
For much of 2018 and the first half of 2019, he spent hours watching ISSF videos on YouTube, studying techniques and trying to understand the finer details of the event. Once he entered the national setup, he also observed senior shooters and sought guidance from national coaches. His efforts eventually took him onto the international stage, including a junior medal at the Asian Championships in 2019.
Several coaches and senior shooters have played a role in his development since then, with foreign coach Thomas Farnik, who joined the Indian squad in 2022, becoming one of the most influential figures in his career. The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) also became an important pillar of his progression after he broke into the national setup.
“When I came into the junior squad, I started going for national camps. There were four-five camps in a year, and that gave me a proper platform to train and improve,” he says.
Niraj believes the support system around Indian shooters has also evolved significantly, allowing athletes to concentrate on performance rather than the logistics surrounding competition.
“Whether it is the coaches, physiotherapists, psychologists, nutritionists or the arrangements for camps and competitions, the federation takes care of a lot of things. As an athlete, you can then focus on your shooting.”
That support, he feels, has also helped provide Indian shooters with a clearer route towards the biggest prize in the sport.
“The federation has supported us very well, and it has given us a proper pathway towards our goal of winning an Olympic medal.”
Beyond the formal sporting system, Niraj has also benefited from a close circle of people who supported him during the more difficult stages of his career. His friend Sumesh, who has known him since his early days in shooting, remained by his side when resources were limited and even shared his training ammunition to help Niraj continue his preparation.
At home, too, the family’s relationship with his sporting career has undergone a transformation. His father, who once worried about the uncertainty of a career in shooting, is now one of his biggest supporters and continues to encourage Niraj to concentrate on his performances. His elder brother serves in the Army, while his mother, a homemaker with little exposure to competitive shooting, watched Niraj compete for the first time on television during the 2021 Delhi World Cup, where he reached the final.
What began with a son asking his parents to spend his college fund on a rifle has since become a journey backed by national medals, international competition and a place in India’s elite shooting setup.
The question for Niraj is no longer whether shooting can provide him with a future. It is how far that future can take him — with an Olympic medal still firmly on his mind.
