B. Sachin: Through the storm and Onwards!

In December 2016, cyclone Vardah was creating a nuisance in the seas off of the coast of Chennai. The International Regatta however, went ahead as planned. 12 year old Bethamalla Sachin weighed a mere 20 kg. Braving the mad sea, and severe competition from all over India, and countries such as Hong Kong and Thailand, Sachin managed to land two silver medals in the sub-junior category. “Sailing taught me the value of hard work,” says Sachin, who is now a well-built 16 year old pro-sailor who has landed medals in a few national competitions, and has gone on to represent India too. And hard work is the principle that his parents, Madhu and Shailaja also swear by. The couple had shifted to Hyderabad in search of greener pastures from their village in Warangal. Here, his mom earned some money making wigs, and his father was a waiter at a small restaurant.

Sachin and his sister studied at the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Society, and it was from there that Sachin first heard about the Yacht Club of Hyderabad in 2015. When he first joined, he was terrified of the water. “I was so scared of the waves that I didn’t want to participate in that Chennai Regatta,” shares Sachin. Coach Suheim Sheikh then motivated the young lad to give it a go, and face his fears. “I was scared that I would die if I went overboard.

But sir reminded me of the work I had put in in the last year, and that gave me hope,” he says.

All of 12, Sachin gave it his all, strained his leg badly in the process, and came a brilliant second. “I lost all fear since then, and have become more focused than ever,” shares the sailor.

That focus reaped him rich rewards the next year in 2017, when he tried for the Navy Boys Sports Company, and was selected. Since then, he has been training at INS Mandovi in Goa, with a bunch of other lads from YCH, and has been adding to his list of accolades, including a bronze in the nationals in Mumbai in 2019, and representing India in Oman in 2017.

Sachin’s parents have had a rough time bringing up him, and older sister Ravali. Those hard times have exacerbated thanks to the pandemic. Both parents are out of work, struggling to pay their rent of Rupees 4000. They are planning to return to their village, where their land is caught in a family dispute, and they will have to struggle harder, and probably work as farm hands to arrange money for Ravali’s college. Madhu has tears in his eyes as he counts these issues, but with a smile, he says he is relieved that his son has made something of himself. Sachin struggled in studies too before he joined the club, but now, he is amongst the top of his class at the Kendra Vidyala in Goa. The parents say they were obviously apprehensive about leaving their extremely young child to play a possibly dangerous sport. But once they saw that he was being well taken care of, and had a natural flair for the sport, they were reassured.

“The hardest part about sailing is that you are really out there on your own. You have to focus on your own game, keep an eye on the rest of the fleet, and also control your boat,” says Sachin. In life, as in the sport, perhaps all of us are left to our own devices. And while some wander and are left stranded at the mercy of time and situations, some take control of their sails, and manage to stay on top of their environment. And for Sachin, that has come after a never-ending journey of hard work and facing his worst fears.