On A Roll

Atita Verghese is one of India’s very few pro skateboarders and she wants more girls to join her on the open road.

- Anindita Ghosh

Atita Verghese discovered skateboarding by chance on a gap year between school and college when a friend lent her a skateboard to take for a spin. Even today, skateboarding is not a very popular sport in India and at the time, it was a complete novelty. She had a brief, liberating ride and it was enough to convince Verghese that she was onto something special.

“When I was 19, a friend of mine, who is one of the founders of HolyStoked Collective, a group of skateboarders in Bangalore, took me to the Play Arena park—before that I had no idea we had a skate park in Bangalore. I tried skateboarding a few times and I had to keep going back for more.” It wasn’t hard for Verghese, who was naturally athletic, to pick up the sport.