Malaika Goel calls the shots in her shooting range

Bang-bang. Target terminated. The 16-year-old from Punjab is the toast of Indian shooting after she stormed a strong field to win silver (her first major international medal) in the women’s 10-metre air pistol at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The youngest member of the Indian contingent put some of the big names in the shade at the Barry Buddon shooting range with some sharp shots. Notable among the stars was idol and pre-tournament favourite Heena Sidhu. But Malaika’s modesty comes to the fore as she plays it down.

“Maybe, it was just my day. I went out there and gave my best and came with a silver medal. Heena is a very good shooter and I admire her. She is actually the World No 1 in that event but luck was not on her side,” she says.

Malaika was closer to the big medal, having taken a lead in the final but she is not losing sleep over it. “The Glasgow Games were a great experience and I could have done better but the silver is fine,” she said.

Her reward? A holiday in London with her extended family. “Right now, I am just chilling out in London, a place I have never been to, and am enjoying every bit of this fabulous city,” she says with a laugh.

Shooting apart, “I swim a lot, play badminton, enjoy watching many other sports and read a lot of books,” she adds.

Malaika is also stunned by reports that say she dropped out of school after her sixth class. “That’s totally wrong!” she protests, clarifying, “That’s when I actually started shooting. I am still studying, in the 12th standard with Humanities as my subjects.”

Malaika’s induction into the firearm sport is interesting. “It’s not like I grew up with guns in my house since my father is a high-ranking police officer. I started shooting in 2008 when I was in the sixth standard. Inspired by a neighbour of mine who used to practice the sport, I told my father that I would like to try my hand at shooting,” she recalls.

Her doting dad Sandeep Goel, superintendent of police, Vigilance, at Ludhiana could not turn down the request. “Being a sports lover, he had no objection at all,” Malaika says.

In fact, Daddy dear went a lot further. He got a pistol shooting range built at their house for his darling daughter, who was happy spending hours punching holes into targets with a pistol in her hand. “I guess he had to build one at home, for there was no proper shooting range in Ludhiana,” she explains.

Malaika justified the faith reposed in her by her parents and gradually began to make strides as she sharpened her shooting skills and outgunned opponents in different tournaments along the way. The big leap came last December when she beat a world-class field including World Cup medal winners Rahi Sarnobat, Heena Sidhu and Annuraj Singh, to win the National 10m air pistol gold.

“My parents support me fully and play a big role in building my confidence going into competitions. They were over the moon after I won the silver at the CWG and stressed that I should build on this success,” Malaika says as she sizes up the arduous journey ahead.

Next on the list is doing well at the World Championships in Spain to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, followed by the Asian Games in South Korea but the bigger goal is the gold at the Rio Games, by which time she’d only be 18. “Yes, an Olympic medal would be something,” says Malaika, who is one of the athletes supported by the Olympic Gold Quest, a non-profit organisation run by former Indian Olympians from different sports who nurture medal prospects.

With such a strenuous task cut out, Malaika’s life is different from most others her age. Unlike most teens, she is neither obsessed with mobile phones nor is hooked on to Facebook yet but is a potential subject for books that could well be written in future.