Anahat Singh: What's in the name? A word from Nanak's prayer, now India's squash sensation

NEW DELHI: Aad aneel anaad anaahat jug jug ayko vays. This exact line appears once at the close of four consecutive stanzas, Pauris 28, 29, 30, and 31, of Japji Sahib, composed by Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, in the opening composition of the Guru Granth Sahib.Translated, it reads roughly as: The One is primal, stainless, without beginning, self-existent (unstruck), and the same throughout all ages. Japji Sahib opens the Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism's central scripture, and it's the prayer devout Sikhs recite every morning as part of their daily practice. Tucked inside that refrain is the word anaahat, which means unstruck, unbeaten, a sound that exists without ever being produced by collision. It is also, as it happens, the name of one of Indian sport's most exciting young athletes, Anahat Singh."My husband came up with it," Anahat's mother, Tani Vadera Singh, had earlier told TimesofIndia.com. "He was reading the Sikh prayer, Japji Sahib. And in the last line, there is, he knows it, the name Anahat."On March 13, 2008, Gursharan Singh was reading the prayer in the hospital room the day his daughter was born. Something about the word stopped him."He said, you know, this sounds really nice," Tani recalled. "I would like to name her that. So that is how (Anahat was named)."There was no grand plan behind it, and there wasn't one behind her sporting career either, at least not at first.The Singh-Vadera household was simply a sporting one. Tani played hockey for Delhi at the sub-junior and junior levels; Gursharan played hockey at St. Stephen's College and had hoped to play for India before academics took over. Uncle Deepak Vadera was once one of India's finest table tennis players. Anahat's elder sister, Amira, played tennis before switching to squash, and Anahat herself started on badminton at six, following the family's simple house rule that sport mattered as much as school. "We always feel that sport is as important as studies," Tani admitted.Anahat trailed her sister into squash next, and the family openly admits they had no idea what they were building. "We didn't obviously imagine all this happening," Tani added. "We were just playing for fun."Father Gursharan, who'd never played the sport himself, taught himself squash so he could help train her, working alongside her coaches. It stayed lighthearted for years, Anahat wanting, as a five-year-old, to be an Olympic champion, though she was picturing badminton at the time, not the sport she'd eventually take to a world stage.The turn toward seriousness came once she made the Commonwealth Games squad at 13, a milestone her mother pinpoints as the moment "fun" started sharing space with real expectation.That balance of joy and intensity has produced a résumé most players twice her age would envy.Anahat stays true to its meaningAnahat debuted for India at 14 at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, won Asian Games medals at 16, and climbed inside the world's top 20 as she transitioned onto the senior circuit.On Saturday, the 18-year-old added the achievement that may end up defining her junior career, having become the first Indian ever to win the World Junior Squash Championship, beating Egypt's Ruqayya Salem 3-0 in the final in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, without dropping a single game across the whole tournament.She'd beaten two other Egyptian players en route, a country that had held this exact title for sixteen consecutive years running. The last non-Egyptian to win it at all was American Amanda Sobhy, back in 2010.READ ALSO: Once played by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, bridge seeks India's 'chess' moment: How 17-year-old Anshul Bhatt leads its revivalIt's a fitting full circle. A name lifted from Guru Nanak's prayer has travelled from the rhythm of a morning recitation to the biggest stage in junior squash. Anahat Singh gave it a new association of her own by living up to the poise and permanence it has come to represent.Get the latest Sports News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.

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