Tania Choudhury is a very popular face in the Lawn Bowls Fraternity of India. She began playing Lawn Bowls at the young age of 10. At 15, she became the youngest Lawn Bowls player to compete at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which was held in Delhi. In 2013, she was named as the Most Valuable Player of the Year by the Bowling Federation of India. Born and brought up in Assam, Tania has already brought many laurels to the state and country, and she stands tall as the daughter of Mr. Anup Kumar Choudhury and Mrs. Pankaja Baruah. Currently, she is pursuing a B.Tech course in Civil Engineering at the reputed Assam Engineering College in Guwahati.
Tania shares the incident that led her to take interest in the game of Lawn Bowls. She mentioned how her father took her to watch a Lawn Bowls match during the National Games held in Assam, in 2007. She was fascinated and thereafter enrolled herself to learn the game when she was just 10 years old. She harboured a strong desire to represent India at some point in her career.
When Tania signed up for practice, the court that was made in Guwahati was of the finest quality. The equipments that were provided were the latest in the market. She considered herself to be lucky to have gotten the chance of training with the best infrastructure across the globe.
“Studies have been equally important to me along with sports and I try to maintain a salubrious balance between the two.” – Tania Choudhury
When asked about her career, Tania explains how she has been successful by dint of sheer hard work. It had all started when she participated in the India’s first ever National Lawn Bowls, organized in Assam itself. Her performance in that event was laudable and from there she went on to attend various camps organized by the Lawn Bowls Federation of India. Following which, she got selected among the Top 15, and after a lot of struggle, she was finally selected among the Top 5 to represent India at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. She continued her journey by participating in many other national and international events, and in 2014 she again got a chance to represent India at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Scotland.
She also attributes her success to her parents who have provided incessant support to her and guided her through all the steps. Tania strongly believes that a balance needs to be maintained between studies and sports. Her mother has always encouraged her to keep both the fields on a constant graph and hence, she maintains a healthy balance between the two.
Assam already boasts of a good background in Lawn Bowls, according to Tania. The facilities available have definitely improved for all the players. Yet, the game is still not quite popular among the masses and that is definitely acting as a big hindrance to its development. She thinks that the game can be popularized by the combined efforts of the players as well as the Lawn Bowls fraternity. The players should participate consistently and bring honor to the state, thereby popularizing the game, while the fraternity should also undertake a number of innovative steps to make it popular among the citizens. The players have been performing well and definitely deserve more facilities.
Tania expressed that her biggest wish is to compete in the 2018 Commonwealth Games which is scheduled to be held in Australia. She shares that being in a country like India she would rather choose engineering as a career, although sports will always be her passion. As a message to the upcoming players of the nation, Tania advised them work sincerely in order to succeed in life.
