NEW DELHI: Aad aneel anaad anaahat jug jug ayko vays. This exact line appears once at the end of four consecutive stanzas, Pauris 28, 29, 30, and 31, of the Japji Sahib, composed by Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, in the opening composition of the Guru Granth Sahib.Translated, it reads roughly like: The One is first, void, without beginning, self-existent (unaffected), and the same in all ages.Japji Sahib opened the Guru Granth Sahib, the central scripture of Sikhism, and it is the prayer that devout Sikhs recite every morning as part of their daily practice. Hidden within that refrain is the word aanahat, which means not beaten, not defeated, a sound that exists that has never been made by collision.
CJP Jantar Mantar Protest Updates
It is also, as it happens, the name of one of India’s most exciting young athletes, Anahat Singh.“My husband knows it,” Anahat’s mother, Tani Vadera Singh, earlier told TimesofIndia.com. “He read the Sikh: pray, Japji Sahib. And in the last line, there is, he knows it, the name Anahat.”On March 13, 2008, Gursharan Singh recited a prayer in the hospital room on the day his daughter was born. Something about the word stopped him.“He said, you know, this is great,” Tani recalled. “I would like to name her that. So that is how (Anahat was named).”There was no big plan behind it, and there was no one behind his sporting career either, at least not at first.The Singh-Vadera household is simply a sporting one. Tani played hockey for Delhi at the sub-junior and junior levels; Gursharan played hockey at St. Stephen’s College and hopes to play for India before academics take over. Uncle Deepak Vadera was once one of the best table tennis players in India. Anahat’s older sister, Amira, played tennis before switching to squash, and Anahat herself started playing badminton at the age of six, following the simple rule in the family home that sport was as important as school.
“We have always felt that sport is as important as studies,” Tani admitted.Anahat followed her sister to the pumpkin, and the family openly admitted that they had no idea what they were building.“We can’t clearly imagine all this happening,” Tani added. “We just play for fun.”Gursharan, who never played the game himself, taught himself squash so he could help train her, working alongside his coaches. It remained light for many years, Anahat, as a five-year-old, wanted to become an Olympic champion, although he painted badminton at the time, not the sport that would eventually take him to a world stage.The change in seriousness came when he made the Commonwealth Games squad at the age of 13, a milestone that his mother pointed out as the moment when “fun” began to share the space with real expectations.That balance of joy and enthusiasm has created a résumé that most players twice his age would envy.
Anahat, true to its meaning
Anahat debuted for India at 14 in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, winning Asian Games medal at 16, and rose within the top 20 in the world as he moved to the senior circuit.On Saturday, the 18-year-old added a feat that could end her junior career, becoming the first Indian to win the World Junior Squash Championship, defeating Ruqayya Salem of Egypt 3-0 in the final in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, without a single match in the entire tournament.He defeated two other Egyptian players on the route, a country that has held this exact title for sixteen consecutive years running. The last non-Egyptian to win it was American Amanda Sobhy, in 2010.ALSO READ: Once played by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the bridge looked for India’s ‘chess’ moment. How 17-year-old Anshul Bhatt took the lead in bringing it to lifeIt’s a fitting full circle. A name taken from Guru Nanak’s prayer has traveled from the rhythm of a morning recitation to the biggest stage of junior squash. Anahat Singh gave it a new association of his own by following the strength and permanence it represented.