Interview
What is your full name? My full name is [Your Name]. The tattoo has a very personal and cultural meaning to my family, and honestly holds pride in having it on me for the rest of my life.
May I see your ID? Of course, here it is. Do take a look
Where are you from? I’m originally from [Your City/Country]. It is a beautiful, colorful, and multicultural place, and it has really defined the core of my values, beliefs about life in general as well as who I am as an individual.
Do you work or study? I study [Your Field] in college. The programme is intellectually challenging, yet critically rewarding and the more I study it, the greater my interest in its theoretical underpinnings and real-world implications.
What sports do you like? My interest in cricket and badminton — two sports on completely either end of the spectrum for me — have taken a little longer to develop. Cricket I adore for its stunning strategic complexity and how it rewards patience, observation, and collective team IQ over an entire cycle of the sun or two. Which is what I like about badminton, for all the opposite reasons: its explosion of speed, emphasis on reaction and quickness, and the extreme physical requirement of prolonged rally. I have a keen interest in cricket as I follow it professionally and play badminton casually, whenever time permits.
Where did you learn to play? Cricket came to me via informal neighbourhood games in my childhood — those unstructured, self-organised matches on any available open ground that constitute the real bedrock of cricket education for most Indian children, regardless of formal coaching. I was introduced to Badminton more formally through a school physical education programme which included some coaching on basic technique, but much of my playthrough secondary school was at comprehensive community sports facilities.
So tell me, did you play any sports when you were a kid? Why Yes, sports took up a large chunk of my childhood free time. In addition to cricket and badminton, I also competed at school level in athletics — sprint distances and the long jump more than once a little wobbly on my feet while going through a phase of genuine interest in football that continued until early adolescence. Exercise was largely just the way my friends and I kept occupied after school, and I suspect that made engagement with sport also instinctive: social and playful rather than competitive or result-driven
Do you believe that children require more physical activity? I believe there is pretty solid evidence that most modern day children in urban settings do not get anywhere near the amount of activity appropriate for their developmental needs. Increasing academic expectations, the availability of screens to pass the time and the shrinking of safe outdoor play areas in many urban communities have made today a sedentary generation compared to any other population within human history. The effects — on physical growth, mental health, sleep quality and social skills — are now well-known and very worrying. Schools, families and urban planners are all responsible for making an environment for physical activity to not be just an added bonus but rather a natural and easy part of children’s daily lives.