The lockdown has forced people to think outside the box of their chosen professions and wear new hats, and Mudit Dani — a Mumbaikar who is the country-s sixth-ranked table tennis player — has donned that of a chat show host. The 21-year-old has started a series called In the Sportlight, available on Instagram and YouTube. In it, he invites some of the country-s top sports personalities to pick their brains, and provide insights on life that relate not just to the sporting arena, but also beyond.

The people involved so far include stalwarts like Leander Paes and Abhinav Bindra, apart from fellow paddlers such as G Sathiyan and Manika Batra. Dani tells us that the idea hit him when people started asking him questions about sports during the lockdown and instead of answering them individually, he thought, why not have a full-fledged chat show to shed light on the subjects? With that in mind, he went about getting in touch with players who were already on his contact list, and sending messages on social media to others, requesting them for their time. There is no external team that helps him out with the process of putting each episode together, and the youngster says that the conversations have been a valuable learning experience for him as well.