Thiruvananthapuram-based Sidhartha Babu shoots for the stars

Winning a gold at the 52nd Kerala State Shooting Championship 2019 held at Idukki, he has become the state champion for the fourth year consecutively.
Sidhartha Babu
Sidhartha Babu

KOCHI:  Sidhartha Babu has led himself to a four-time glory. He has just broken an eight-year-old record in 50-metre prone rifle in the senior open category with a score of 689. Winning a gold at the 52nd Kerala State Shooting Championship 2019 held at Idukki, he has become the state champion for the fourth year consecutively. A para rifle shooter who belongs to Thiruvananthapuram, he is Kerala’s pride. He is presently training himself for the World Championship to be held in Australia in October.

Growing up, rifles always fascinated him. “Like every kid, I loved playing with rifles. I never played with pistols, but only with rifles,” says Sidhartha. It was while in school that he had the first taste of firing off an air rifle. The shot tore through the target point, surprising even Sidhartha. “It was my cousin’s rifle. We had used a compass to make the target circles. The shot hit the compass mark,” he chuckles. That got him hooked to shooting for life.

The next few years saw him go on hunger strikes and pleading with his parents to get him an air rifle and his dream was realised in his tenth grade. But at that time, there was no shooting range and the concept of getting trained in rifle shooting was something alien to him. A martial art enthusiast, Sidhartha was also teaching karate by the age of 19. But, a few years later, at 22, he met with an accident which paralysed him. “That was the end of karate,” he says. 

It was after the accident that his tryst with shooting began, and how! He would update himself by reading and training himself regularly. A self-taught professional shooter, he finally decided to try his luck at the rifle club in Idukki. “It was a bit difficult to convince them. But the shot I gave surprised them. And I was inducted into the club. I started training in the shooting range in Idukki,” says Sidhartha. From 2008, his career in shooting began. Soon he went on to earn gold medals in state-level championships and set new records. He is the current national champion and national record holder in para shooting as well. In 2018, he could train himself under Olympic champion Sergei Martinov.

An international rifle shooter staying in RR Nagar in Bengaluru with his four-year-old dog Crayon, Sidhartha lives a very active life at his home. He says his home is like a mad scientist’s factory, as he spends a large part of his time coming up with his own inventions. Even the wheelchair he uses was made by him from scratch. “People identify me as a shooter.

But I am just someone trying to live a beautiful life. I am very aware of the mortality aspect of life. I never say no to any project. People feel they have a lot of time left here. I don’t take life for granted. I am trying to create a beautiful life out of the time I have here,” says Sidhartha. 

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