As like most of the people growing up in India, making sports as a career choice is never an option. But with the recent development of league systems in Cricket, Kabaddi, Badminton with an increase in viewership and interests has helped many youngsters seeking sports as a lifelong professional activity.
The story of Rajaguru Subramanian, defender right cover for Dabang Delhi in Pro Kabaddi League is
similar to what most of us faced and he had to make a big career choice of playing kabaddi over volleyball .
“I played volleyball till school level.. not much scope was there in volleyball,” recollects Rajaguru.” So, I thought playing kabaddi was better as I was much interested in this sport, and my friends too were playing this sport.” Also, the job prospects of playing kabaddi drew Rajaguru towards this sport. “We thought, if we take up sport as a career, we can get jobs. Playing other expensive sports was not feasible, so I chose kabaddi,” he said.
But Rajaguru’s success story was not that easy. Coming from a middle-class family in a small village called Vaduvur from Tamil Nadu, Rajaguru has to undergo his share of struggles. “I struggled a lot. Travelling from Vaduvur to Chennai was 8-hours journey, I did not had money to travel back and forth. Had to wear other team’s dress, did not had good kit to play kabaddi.”
He credits the senior kabaddi players in his village for helping him out in pursuing his passion. “In our village, there were a lot of senior players, including Indian players. Watching them play got me interested in kabaddi. They helped me a lot in pursuing kabaddi.”
Currently Rajguru is one of the best kabaddi players around who has won a gold medal in the Asian Games in 2014 and this is just the beginning.