Siren Intern Tanvi Maheshwari shares her experiences growing up loving sport in India and how women shaped not only her love of sports, but passion for breaking barriers.
Growing up in an Indian household surrounded by brothers, sport was not just a pastime — it was an atmosphere, an unspoken rhythm that set the pace of daily life. Cricket dominated that rhythm. Televised matches brought the family together, and even when electricity cut out during crucial overs, the transistor radio kept the game alive. Commentary became a kind of background score to my childhood.
But while my brothers imitated their cricketing idols, I found myself searching for stories and players who looked like me. Women whose triumphs carried a different kind of resonance.
Badminton offered some of my earliest moments of connection. At school, a racquet felt like an extension of myself, but watching Saina Nehwal and later P.V. Sindhu changed everything. They weren’t just competing, they were rewriting India’s sporting narrative on a global stage. I still remember seeing Sindhu’s Olympic silver and later her World Championship gold, moments that told every young girl with a racquet that she belonged.
Those victories gave my own schoolyard games a bigger meaning. I wasn’t only playing to fit in with my brothers, I was playing to be part of a story larger than myself.
Swimming, too, became a personal refuge. The stillness of water, the rhythm of strokes, the silence beneath the surface, it was as meditative as it was competitive. Winning medals at school events validated the hours of discipline I poured into it. But it was when I learned about Indian swimmers like Bhakti Sharma who set records in open-water swimming that I began to understand what courage in the pool looked like beyond the stopwatch. Her determination made me see that swimming could be more than a school-level hobby, it could be a lifelong pursuit of resilience.
Tennis added another layer to this journey. I grew up watching Serena Williams command the court with her powerful serve and unshakable presence. For me, she was not just a champion, but a lesson in self-belief. When I saw her fight through injuries, criticism, and even the challenges of motherhood to stay at the top of her sport, it redefined strength. She showed me that mental stamina matters as much as physical skill, and that resilience can inspire across generations.
Basketball was where I learned the importance of teamwork. Though the NBA dominated the television screens in my house, I found myself drawn to stories of the WNBA women who didn’t always receive the same spotlight but played with equal, if not greater, tenacity. Players like Maya Moore, who paused her career at her peak to fight for social justice, expanded my understanding of what it meant to be an athlete. They were not just players, they were leaders and change makers.
Some of my most vivid memories, though, are not from watching but from competing. Standing at the start of an inter-school track race, those moments were about testing myself, about proving that I could rise to the challenge. When I won a gold medal in sprinting and another in swimming, the victories felt deeply personal. But they also connected me to the athletes I admired. Like them, I had worked through doubt, practiced discipline, and learned how to hold my nerve when it mattered most.
Looking back, I realise how much women in sport have shaped my perspective. Growing up, I was surrounded by men’s commentary and male idols, but the moments that truly defined my connection to sport were seeing women break barriers. Sindhu on the badminton court, Serena redefining tennis, Bhakti Sharma in the open sea, and countless others whose stories don’t always make headlines.
For me, sport has always been more than competition—it has been a teacher. It taught me resilience, patience, and discipline. But most importantly, it taught me the power of visibility. Representation matters. Hearing about women who dominated their fields gave me permission to imagine myself in those spaces too.
What began as imitation of my brothers has turned into something richer—a lifelong appreciation for the women who continue to expand the boundaries of what sport can be.
Their victories are not just medals on a podium, they are reminders that girls like me—sitting in a crowded living room in India, listening to commentary over a crackling radio—belong in these stories too.