8 INSPIRATION
Meet the 5 most Influential Young People who think big , dream big and do big at the right age
Ajay Malik
Ajay Malik , a 13-year-old
Class 9 student , has emerged as a national tennis champion . He started his journey when he was 10-years-old and would practise on mud courts developed by his father on agricultural land . His cousin Sombir Malik would coach him . Sombir himself learnt the game by watching matches on television but unfortunately due to the elbow issue ; he couldn ’ t take it forward . Under his guidance , Ajay won under 14 boys single title in National Tennis Championship at the DLTA Complex .
His father Ajmer Malik is a retired Subedar from Indian Army and had no money to pay for refreshment between breaks during his matches . Throughout the match , Ajay just drank water which solely gave him enough strength to endure himself to the end of the game . In three years practice , he managed to win the biggest title in the country in his age category .
Ajay would practice in mud court where
the net for mud courts was supported by electricity poles . Instead of drawing the lines by lime powder , nylon ropes were used as they were cheaper . His father spent 3 lakh of his retirement fund to build the tennis court for his son . He didn ’ t take any scientific training but resort to simple training methods . “ 5kg to 100kg weights were used by him while running to build strength in legs and wrist . With such tough training , he developed endurance . Though he needs tactical exposure ,” says Arun who has coached many junior Indian team players , as reported by Firstpost .
Arun had also helped Ajay to get four racquets in a year from the Head , as Ajay racquet ’ s gut was broken just before the match and he left everything on God . His father couldn ’ t pay to repair the racquet since it would require 800Rs and he only had 300Rs in his pocket which he saved for the ticket from Delhi to his village .
Ajay has two pairs of shoes . He uses one to practise daily while the other one he has kept for tournaments .
Tanmay Bakshi
At the age of 12 , most other children are busy ‘ making volcanoes ’ for a science project ; Tanmay Bakshi develops apps and programs . The young Canadian boy of Indian origin recently spoke at the IBM Developer Connect in Bengaluru , which got the whole world talking about him . He started coding at the early age of five and since then he has created several apps that are available on the App Store like ‘ tTables ’, an app that helps you learn multiplication tables . He knows coding languages like Java , C #, VB and quite a few more . Bakshi is home-schooled and says he codes in his spare time !
WINSPIRE : Empowering youth | December , 2016