GUWAHATI: Assam’s Jinu Gogoi won a bronze medal in lawn ball in the ongoing Khelo India Youth Games 2020.
It is to be mentioned that Jinu Gogoi started bowling barely three months ago. That too only because she used to see her employer Bima Borah play the sport every evening at the Sarusajai Complex while she babysat her (Borah’s) 10-month-old child.
“I used to watch her play every day, and once, just on a whim, I asked her if she would teach me the sport,” Gogoi revealed.
Three months from that whimsical lesson, partnering Karina Patowary, she won bronze in the Under-21 Girls pair event at the lawn bowl green in the Khelo India Youth Games here on Wednesday.
Gogoi comes from Charaideo in Upper Assam. Her mother Mamoni Gogoi works in a tea garden in Sivasagar, managed by Borah’s husband. “After I had my daughter, I got her as a caretaker,” Borah explained, “She helps me around the house as well as takes care of the baby when I can’t.”
One of the driving motivations for Gogoi to accept the job offer was a cancer-stricken father whose treatments forced her out of school after Class X. Teary eyed, Gogoi dedicated the medal to him and resolved to put whatever reward she would get to aid his treatment.
For Borah, a member of the police, her ward’s medal was more than just reward for her own big-heartedness. She hoped that this would catapult her to greater heights.
“When I got her here I was hoping I could get her out of a tough situation and also educate her, and elevate her,” Borah said.
“It may be just a bronze, but it has come after just three months of training. I can see her continuing and getting much better very soon.”
For the event itself, the venue of its debut in the Khelo Games was perfect. Guwahati is after all considered the place where India’s tryst with lawn bowls began, in 2007 with the National Championships.
