Halfway through this book, T Sudhir illustrates Saina’s obedience through an anecdote. In 2005, she turned non-vegetarian midway through the course of a meal in China only because coach Pullela Gopichand asked her to. I laughed in reminiscence. The same trait made an impression on me while interviewing Saina in 2009.

My interview with her, for a national women’s magazine, was scheduled in between her shoot for a commercial and a flight to Hyderabad that same evening. We met in the green room, accompanied by her father, Harvir Singh. An hour after she patiently answered all my questions, the studio shooed us out.