KOLKATA: “Sheetal and I are friends off the field, but once we find the target and get the target…”Three days after dominating and losing the World Archery Paraseries event Sheetal Devi For individual compound gold in Bangkok, Pilnag steps back, describing the moment. “We have a fierce competitive mindset when playing against each other,” he revealed to TOI on Tuesday.Go beyond limits with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!The 18-year-old had already beaten Sheetal to gold – at the Paralympic Nationals in January 2025 – and she took it that far at the Khelo India Para Games and the national championships earlier this year, where she won a silver and a bronze.was Payal, 8, the daughter of a day laborer, was playing with her brother when she stepped on a bare wire lying in a water hole at a nearby construction site. The Class III girl was critically injured, leaving doctors with no option but to amputate her four limbs to save her life.With little means to take care of a quadruplet, his parents Bijay and Janta were advised by the then District Collector of Bolangir, Odisha to send Payal to the Parbatigribal Niketan Orphanage in his native district. Relatives and neighbors had other suggestions to put him out of his misery sooner – to end his life. “She won’t be able to eat or walk, it’s better to give her some poison,” he said.Beje and Janta were made of hard stuff. And today, just over ten years after the accident, things have come full circle for their daughter – Payal is the only leotard archer to compete on the international stage. “When people made these remarks, I was still young but I remember them clearly. It was difficult, but now when I look back at those words, I feel a mixture of emotions – it’s painful and also satisfying,” reveals Pyle.“I am grateful to those who spoke against me; it was precisely because they said those things that I was able to summon the courage to go forward and reach such heights.”Payal was grateful to her coach Vidwan who was drawn to the girl’s painting at the orphanage leading to art. Vidwan saw the painting posted on ‘X’, and in 2023, brought him to the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board Sports Complex in Jammu and introduced him to a new chapter in life.Vidwan developed a custom bow for him with a similar release mechanism to the one he designed for Sheetal. Pyle can carry a specialized bow with prosthetic legs fitted with a steel device with a chest extraction mechanism. Someone else has to carry the arrow, in Payal’s case his 20-year-old sister Barsa, who lives with him in Jammu. “I knew nothing about archery and it took two years to master the skill,” she explained.There has been no looking back for the archer who is now focusing on helping India win the gold medal. Asian Games And in the Paralympics. “My parents are incredibly happy right now. They have invited me to come back home to Odisha, but I have decided not to go yet. It is because I want to win another international medal. As I have specific training requirements, I am staying in Jammu right now. I just want to go there and win again,” declared Payal.
