Chandigarh: At 67, Suman Bansal has finally found the time to do something she had wanted to do as a child: shoot.Two years ago, after spending most of her adult life as a homemaker, Bansal discussed her childhood dream with her husband, that she once left behind. He did not dismiss it as a whim. He went to the Sector 25 Police Range, found out about the formalities, got the forms filled and enrolled her for shooting coaching. And the medals followed.At the recently held 51st Chandigarh State Shooting Championship, Bansal won four medals- two golds in the senior category, in the 50-metre and 10-metre air pistol events, besides a silver in the 50-metre event and a bronze in the 10-metre event in the masters category.For Suman the story began much earlier, in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan. As a child, she would place a walnut on her sister’s head and try to shoot it with a toy gun. Her parents, worried about injuries, stopped her. Her father, a grain merchant, and her homemaker mother told her that if she wanted to pursue something, she should do it properly.She found her first opportunity through the NCC. Inspired by her cousins, Bansal joined NCC and began shooting with a 2 knot 2 rifle while she was in Class 7th. She continued with NCC through college. But in her second year of undergraduate studies, she got married. The shooting stopped, and life took over.Her husband, a government doctor, had a transferable job. Bansal spent the following decades raising their three children and moving with the family, putting her own ambitions on hold.“Life happened. My children had to be raised, their education had to be taken care of, and I supported my husband,” she says.At 65, with her children grown up and her household responsibilities no longer demanding all her time, she decided it was her turn.Her husband remembered the conversation.“He went to the police range himself and found out how I could enrol. He got the forms and started the process for me,” she says.Since then, shooting has become part of her daily routine. Shooting is not the only thing she has started doing after 65. Bansal has also enrolled in an instrumental music course at Panjab University recently and she occasionally tries her hand at making jewellery, having already sold a few pieces.From 10am to 11am, Bansal attends classes at Panjab University, where she currently plays the guitar. From 11am to 1pm, she practises shooting at the university’s shooting range. When she needs to train at the 50-metre range, she heads to the Sector 25 Police Range, where she trains under coach Babu Ram.There is some pain, too. Holding an air pistol for long periods leaves her arm aching. She massages it with oil and returns to the range.“I don’t think too much about the pain. I just want to have fun while shooting,” she says.Her 90-year-old mother was among those happiest to see her daughter finally return to a dream she had left behind decades ago.Friends in her kitty group, too, are surprised when they see Bansal’s new routine .“They are surprised, but it is a happy surprise,” she says.When she raises the pistol and prepares to take a shot, everything else disappears. “Only the target and the sheet are in my mind. At that moment, I am just there to enjoy the game,” she says.The medals, she says, are little more than “shiny metals”. What matters to her is the sport and the pleasure of doing something she loves. Yet those medals take on a different meaning when her grandchildren see them.“The medals make me very happy when I see my grandchildren feeling proud of me. In a way, I win them for my family,” she says.For Bansal, age is no longer a reason to wait. She spent years making time for everyone else. Now she has begun making time for herself. And every time she raises the pistol, she is doing something she once thought she had lost the chance to do.
