EYE ON THE BALL

As it brings together ‘brown ballers’ from across the world, India Rising shows Indians, too, can hoop

- Karan Madhok

An American of Indian origin, Gautam Kapur, 28, did much of his schooling in New Delhi. Here he developed his love for basketball, playing for his school team at the Siri Fort Sports Complex. He continued playing his beloved sport when he returned to the US for college, and, suddenly, he realised he was something of a novelty: a brown person, returning from a country of cricket-obsessives, passionate about basketball. “People were shocked,” says Kapur, “Thinking, ‘Wow, Indians can hoop?’”

Caught between two faraway lands, basketball would become the thread that tied Kapur together—and soon, help him connect with other Indian players from all over the world. “This moment of transition—from India to the US—got me dedicated to elevating basketball for all South Asians around the world.”

Despite a wide diaspora of fervent basketball players, Kapur knew that ‘brown ballers’ like him are a rarity of sorts. Abroad, the stereotype for many Indians was to be more academic than athletic. For much of the Indian mainstream, basketball has hardly been a visible entity outside of a few scenes in Bollywood films like Kuch Kuch Hota