‘I found my positivity on court’: Para World champ Krishna Nagar on how he coped with loss of his mother | Badminton News

Krishna Nagar, India’s brand new para World champion in SH6 category, lost an anchor of his life, his mother, six months after his Tokyo Paralympic triumph in 2021. Grief cast a shadow on his gold, and he plunged into negativity, that ate away at his confidence on the badminton court.
But the sport and support of his friends means the Jaipur pro has rediscovered his winning stomp. It gave Krishna his first para World title at Thailand from three Championships, one among India’s three gold, as he continued to bombard Chinese Lin Naili in the 22-20, 22-20 final at Thailand on Sunday. The SH6 category is for those that are short-statured and suffer from dwarfism.
Krishna Nagar’s jump smashes
One of the standout features of Krishna’s game has been his jump smashes. But his verve had gone missing post his mother’s demise. “There were too many hurdles after her passing away. She was my everything. But then my mental situation worsened after her death. I sunk into darkness,” he recalls.
Badminton and buddies would drag him away from the brink. “When things go bad, friends are compulsory. You need their hasi-mazaak otherwise you go into a very bad shell of negativity. And your nature becomes rude,” he recalls. His friends and Jaipur coaches Yadvendra Singh and Manoj Daso at Sawai Man Singh stadium, would be his pillars. “Only badminton kept me afloat. One day I said, chalo khelte hai abhi.”
At Thailand, he found the missing link after losing the Para Asian final. “I found speed and positivity, made fewer errors, kept patience and maintained attacking variations,” he says.
Krishna has followed his mother’s advice of staying humble, and not allowing nasty people to flip his nature to rudeness, one thing she always repeated. His next target is cued up. “I have to defend my Paralympic gold in six months no matter what,” he says.