Stars and Strides

Entertainment: Portraits by Kaveree Bamzai
Sreeleela, 23, Actor: Southern Siren

SHE is yet to break into Mum­bai cinema, but Sreeleela has already become a star in Telugu cinema, no less because of her sizzling song, ‘Kissik’, with Allu Arjun in Pushpa 2: The Rule. Her romantic drama with Kartik Aaryan, directed by Anurag Basu, is slated for a Diwali release. A qualified doctor, Sreelee­la is set to make her Tamil debut alongside Sivakarthikeyan in ‘Parasakthi’, is doing two Telugu films with Ravi Teja and Akhil Akkineni. Rumours also suggest her entry into Maddock Films with Ibrahim Ali Khan. So what does being young in India mean to Sreeleela? “It’s such an ex­citing space—this blend of tradition and progress constantly coexisting. I feel like I’m straddling two worlds because I’ve lived and studied in America, too, so I have an inherent duality. India teaches you to be rooted, and America taught me to question and explore. The mix of both has helped me shape who I am, not just as an actor, but as a person,” she says.

 

So what does she bring to the table that others don’t? An amalgamation of a lot of things, she says. Sincerity, range, instinct, and most importantly, gratitude. “I’ve been lucky to be a part of films and characters that have connected with people, and I believe they have embraced me as one of their own. That sup­port—that love—is what drives me to keep showing up fully, every single time,” she says.

Rishab Rikhiram Sharma, 26, Musician” The Prodigy

HIS father runs one of the most famous musical instrument business in Delhi so it was only natural that young Rishab would grow around some of the most talented names of the music world. The young­est disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar continued his sitar training under Pandit Parimal Sadaphal after Ravi Shankar’s death. Rishab also received initial training from his father, Sanjay Sharma, who is a master luthier. He plays Hindi and Western tunes on the sitar, dresses extravagant­ly, and sings too.

Hridhu Haroon, 22, Actor: The Polyglot

THE world discov­ered him as the lover looking for a place to be in­timate in All We Imagine As Light, but Hridhu Haroon has been around since 2022 when he did Crash Course, a Hindi series about the Kota coaching factory. That was the beginning of a multilingual career for the young Haroon who dropped out of Penn State University because of Cov­id, never to return. A year-and-a-half in Mumbai, thanks to his generous father, Shibu Thameens, a film distributor who enabled him to rent a flat there, and Haroon was set, doing movies across languages, from the Hindi Mumbaikar for Santosh Sivan in 2023 to the Tamil jailbreak movie, Thugs, also in 2023. Coming up is ‘Bad Girl’ with Anjali Sivaraman, and ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’ with Jagadish.

“When I was growing up in Trivandrum, there was a theatre next door where my mother and my grandmother took me to watch movies,” he says, tracing the origins of his interest in cinema. “Later in Montfort School, Yercaud, I developed my love for theatre,” he says, as he now divides his time between Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram for work.

Vedang Raina, 24, Actor: Cool Act

HE sings, he dances, he acts. He stood out in a sea of nepo babies in Zoya Akhtar’s The Archies for Netflix in 2023, and was the beat­ing heart of Vasan Bala’s rescue mission Jigra. Vedang Raina is a Kash­miri who grew up in Juhu, Mumbai, studied at the Narsee Monjee In­stitute of Management Studies and is one of the most sought after young actors in the competitive world of Mumbai cine­ma. His chiselled looks, nepo baby girlfriend and famous friends ensure he is always in the news. The red-carpet ready Raina is a paparazzi favourite, but he is also a serious actor willing to wait for his chance.

Ananya Panday, 26, Actor: Princess Charming

FROM a nepo baby who was the butt of all jokes to a young woman shoul­dering movies and series, Ananya Panday has come a long way. She can laugh at an exaggerated version of a privileged princess in the series Call Me Bae, play a cuckolded young woman in Gehraiyaan in 2022, and even an early 20th-century lawyer in Kesari 2. Panday has left behind some of the ill-ad­vised movies like Liger to become one of the most exciting young women to watch, who under­stands the power of social media and can quietly carry the scare of being the face that launched a thousand memes on the struggles of being born with a famous last name.

Society & Culture: Portraits by V Shoba
Shounak Roy, 18, Musician: Classical Class

YOUNG people supposedly chase speed over depth, but 18-year-old Shounak Roy is playing the long, medita­tive line. A sarod prodigy from West Bengal, Roy is the youngest disciple of the late maestro Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta whose legacy lives on in Roy’s command over ragas far beyond his years. He made headlines for an extraordinary feat—performing 32 ragas over 4 hours and 45 minutes without pause, a record-setting ode to the depth and stamina of Hindustani classical music.

Roy’s style is steeped in the Senia Shahjahanpur gharana tradition, marked by clarity, introspection, and fierce discipline. But there is something unmistaka­bly contemporary about his presence—he is as comfortable on a festival stage as he is in intimate baithaks, and his digital recitals have drawn global listeners. In a culture where classical training often begins early and fades with adolescence, Roy has not only endured but evolved—with the resilience of a rising raga.

What sets him apart is not just his skill but his intent: to bring the sarod to a generation more attuned to background beats than front-stage solos. With each meend and taan, Roy reminds us that the future of Indian classical music rests, quite literally, in young hands.

Maithili Thakur, 24, Singer: Tradition and Modernity

AT 24, Maithili Thakur sings of many Indias— and all of them listen. With her harmonium, unshakeable poise, and a voice that travels cen­turies, she has brought classical and folk music into the phones, homes and hearts of millions. Not through the scaffold­ing of pop machinery but through pure, unfiltered artistry—delivered daily on YouTube, Facebook, and stages across the world.

Born in Bihar’s Madhu­bani district and trained by her father, Thakur took it all—Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Sanskrit verses, Kabir bhajans—and ren­dered them not just with accuracy but love. The kind that leaps past lan­guage and lands squarely in emotion. Alongside her brothers, she has built a digital devotional renaissance. At last count, she had over nine million followers. In 2024, the prime minister named her India’s Cultural Am­bassador of the Year—not a ceremonial title, but an accurate one. She is a reminder that tradition can go viral.

Prajal Regmi, 21, Entrepreneur: Craft of Identity

IN Gelling, a village in Sikkim’s Soreng district, Prajal Regmi found his calling not in textbooks but in the vibrant threads of his community’s heritage. At 16, he began organising open mic events under the banner ‘Nepanglish’, providing a platform for local talent and fostering youth en­gagement. This initiative laid the foundation for his deeper commitment to cultural preservation and empowerment.

In 2020, amidst the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, Prajal founded Ripra Clothing—a brand dedicated to celebrating Sikkimese identity and indigenous art. He estab­lished a manufacturing unit in Lucknow, ensuring the continuity of tradi­tional crafts and providing livelihoods during uncer­tain times. Ripra became a walking archive—a way to wear your history lightly, but proudly. Prajal isn’t just an entrepreneur; he is a cartographer of belonging. At 21, he leads the Young Entrepreneurs Forum India (Northeast chapter) and has been recognised with the Bal Ratna Puraskar. But what matters more than the honours is the ethos: this is fashion as quiet activism. In a marketplace that sells culture as aesthetic, Regmi insists it is inheritance. His work reminds India that the Northeast isn’t a motif. It is a mirror.

Shubhavi Arya, 26, Animator: Tender Urgency

MOST filmmakers wait—for grants, producers, the right camera. Shubhavi Arya didn’t. At 16, she sat at her desk in Delhi and stitched together cutout figures frame by frame, creating Adventures of Malia—a stop-motion film about a girl who transforms into a mermaid to battle marine pollution. It had no dialogue, but it spoke clearly. The film travelled farther than most teenag­ers do—over 30 interna­tional film festivals, from Chicago to Athens.

Now 26, Arya contin­ues to animate the crises others scroll past. Her work is defined by a rare blend of tenderness and urgency. Whether ad­dressing climate change, gender, or migration, she renders complexity through visual lyricism. Her medium—stop motion—is notorious­ly slow, meticulous, and stubborn. What distinguishes Arya isn’t just that she is young or talented—it is that she understands animation as more than metaphor. It is, in her hands, an act of care. To move the inan­imate, frame by aching frame, is to believe that even the most inert sys­tems—environmental, political, emotional— can change if we just keep moving.

In a noisy world, Arya’s protest is quiet, deliberate and moving.

Garvita Gulhati, 24, Entrepreneur: Worth Every Drop

At 15, Garvita Gulhati confront­ed a staggering statistic: 14 million litres of water wasted daily in Indian restau­rants, left untouched in glasses. That moment would become her origin story. Today, she is known as India’s ‘Water Girl,’ and her work has saved more water than most cities use in a day.

In 2015, Garvita founded Why Waste?—a youth-led organisation that turned the humble drinking glass into a tool of activism. Her flagship campaign, #GlassHalfFull, challenged the hospitality industry’s norms by advo­cating for half-filled water glasses, reducing unneces­sary waste. Despite initial resistance, her persistence led to widespread adop­tion, with over 500,000 restaurants embracing the practice, saving millions of litres of water.

Garvita’s impact ex­tends beyond restaurants. The ‘Why Waste?’ app enables individuals to track and reduce their water footprint, promoting daily conser­vation habits. Her efforts have garnered interna­tional recognition and her journey shows how a single idea, driven by determination, can ripple into a global movement, inspiring a generation to view water not as an infinite resource, but as a precious commodity worth every drop.

Arhan Khan (Aka Lucky Dancer), 23, Dancer: Performative Panache

ARHAN Khan didn’t wait for Bollywood to find him. He found the phone camera instead. Known to his millions of followers as Lucky Dancer, he came of age in the golden hour of TikTok—blue-eyed, mop-haired, and moving like the beat lived inside him. He didn’t just lip-sync. He performed. With a flick of his wrist, a tilt of the head, he turned 15-second videos into fan economies.

Born in Delhi in 2001, Lucky rose in sync with a generation that learned to dance for the screen before the stage. What set him apart wasn’t just talent—it was timing. He choreo­graphed longing, stylised heartbreak, and made teen­age angst sparkle. By 18, he was not just a social media influencer—he was an icon, with fan edits, brand deals, and music video cameos in tow. He gained prominence through TikTok, amassing over 18 million followers and 788 million likes before the platform was banned in India in 2020.

He has since transi­tioned into full-fledged performance: music, fashion, choreography. Yet there is still something homemade about him. A boy who got famous dancing in his living room and somehow stayed there—in the hearts of his digital devotees.

Anubhav Wadhwa, 26 Entrepreneur: Tyreless Optimist

AT AN age when most teenagers are angling for driving lessons, Anubhav Wadhwa was trying to stop what we drive on from poi­soning the air. He was 16 when he founded Tyrelessly—a platform for the responsible col­lection and recycling of used tyres. It sounds niche until you realise that India generates millions of end-of-life tyres each year, most of which are burned in the open, releasing toxic black clouds into already polluted skies. Tyrelessly offers a deceptively simple solution: it picks up used tyres and sends them to authorised re­cycling plants. Behind the logistics is a deeper clarity—about circular economies, environ­mental accountability, and the fact that we cannot tech our way out of climate change unless we start with the ground beneath our feet.

Wadhwa was already a serial entrepreneur by then—having started TechAPTO, a develop­ment firm, at 13, and Trends on Internet, a data analytics venture, soon after. He studied law in London but his roots remain in impact innovation. The UN recognised has him as one of its top 50 youth solutions.

Cricket: Portraits by Aditya Iyer
Shubman Gill, 25, Batsman: Leading Role

IN 2023, only his second full year of representing India in 50-over cricket, Gill accumulated as many as 1,584 runs in ODIs, the most by an active player in a single calendar by a fair distance. He would have scored more had he not been laid low by dengue, which ensured Gill missed the early stages of the World Cup at home, but five hundreds—in­cluding a double hundred against New Zealand—in that single season made him the most exciting young prospect around in Indian cricket. Despite already having scored 14 international hundreds across all formats, Gill is more than just his numbers, for he is actively being groomed for a leadership role. Already he is vice captain of India in the white-ball formats. Couple that with him securing the pivotal No 3 batting position in the Test set-up, Indian cricket is heavily reliant on the 25-year-old from Fazilka, Punjab, very much the present and future of the game in the country.

Vaibhav Suryavanshi, 14, Batsman: Great Expectations

WHAT were your achieve­ments at 14? Vaibhav Suryavan­shi’s was to make a global name for himself with a superla­tive debut season in the toughest cricket league in the world, IPL, includ­ing hitting a century. Not just any century but the fastest by an Indian in the existence of IPL. The 35-ball hundred for Rajasthan Royals, which shocked the watching world, made Suryavanshi the young­est known centurion in the history of men’s T20 cricket around the world—played internationally or otherwise—by four whole years. Such has been his impact, making Suryavanshi synony­mous with the depth of India’s cricketing talent, which has now begun to blossom earlier than ever before. Plenty was expected from the che­rubic boy from Samasti­pur, Bihar, when he was picked up by Rajasthan Royals for `1.1 crore, all of 13-years-old then. He lived up to the hype with a six off his very first ball in IPL, but then, just two matches later, came the century that broke all existing records across parameters—age and speed. Never before has a player made such an impression at this tender an age. So, even as Suryavanshi’s future looks very bright, he now has expectations, as well as a reputation, to live up to.

Nitish Kumar Reddy, 21, All-Rounder: The Gamechanger

NITISH JUMAR REDDY had not played Test cricket before taking the flight to Australia late last year for the Bor­der-Gavaskar Trophy. Based largely on his skills shown in white-ball cricket, Reddy was given a debut in the first Test in Perth. He responded with a counter-attacking top score in a low-scoring first innings, despite batting as low as No 8. The top-scor­ing continued through the course of the series, incredible because he continued batting amidst tailenders. Before the last Test in Sydney started, Reddy had top-scored in four out of seven innings, including in both innings in the day-night Test of Adelaide. The fourth and final of those occasions was a career-defining maiden hundred that announced his arrival on the international stage. In front of record crowds at the gigantic Melbourne Cricket Ground, Reddy walked in to bat with India in real bother at 191/6 and conjured up an essay worth 114 runs. The innings was powerful enough to reduce the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri to tears. In Reddy, India have perhaps found an all-round mainstay in the red-ball game.

Tilak Varma, 22, Batsman: Hyderabad Hitman

IN the space of 72 hours, Tilak Varma went from potential star to certified superstar, with two T20I hundreds in and against South Africa. In the first of those, on November 13, 2024, in Centurion, he bashed seven sixes to score an unbeaten 107, nearly half of India’s total. Two days later, the boy from Hyderabad smoked 10 sixes to score 120 runs, again unbeaten, as India posted the unreal total of 283/1 in 20 overs. Wholly unafraid to express himself, Varma captures both the scope and potential of India’s newest generation on the in­ternational stage. He looked good for a third T20I century just a few weeks after his exploits against the Proteas when, against England, the runs ran out in the chase as he finished with an unbeaten 72 in Chennai. On all three occa­sions, Varma was declared the Player of the Match, which only goes to prove that when he gets his eyes in, the 22-year-old intends to complete the job at hand.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, 23, Batsman: The Run Machine

GIVEN all that he has already achieved in international cricket, especially in the Test arena, it is hard to fathom that Yashasvi Jaiswal is just 23. With a truckful of runs at an average of well over 50, he has not only cemented his position as Test opener, but has become the mainstay around which India’s top-order revolves. In 2024, Jaiswal scored over 700 runs in a series against England, aided by not one but two double centuries scored over consecutive Tests. The boy who rose from the streets of Mumbai, quite literally, simply does not score small hundreds, for each of his four have breached the 150-run mark—171, 209, 214 not out, and 161, the last of those in and against Australia on a tricky second innings wicket in Perth. That’s not to indicate that he isn’t a short-format player, for his ability to explode on com­mand has ensured each of his last three IPL seasons has seen over 400 runs for Rajasthan Royals.

Sai Sudharsan, 23, Batsman: Consistent Scorer

TRULY announc­ing himself with a near-century (96) in the final of the 2023 edition of IPL for Gujarat Titans, Sai Sudharsan received his India cap soon after, and he made it count. He struck fifties in his first two ODIs, during the second-string tour of South Africa immediately after the last 50-over World Cup, but hasn’t been looked at as an India opener since. That is perhaps set to change at the end of this IPL, for the lefty from Tamil Nadu has been the epitome of consistency for his IPL franchise, with only one score of less than 36 in 10 innings so far, averaging over 50 per game. The only player to breach the 500-run mark this season apart from Virat Kohli, Sudharsan has often been handed the Orange Cap, almost single-handedly keeping Gujarat Titans in contention for the play­offs. Such form will not be ignored for much longer by the national selectors.

Abhishek Sharma, 24, Batsman: Opening Shots

IN the space of a couple of months this year, Abhishek Sharma has struck the highest individ­ual score for India in T20Is—135 versus Eng­land—and the equivalent by an Indian in IPL: 141 for Sunrisers Hyderabad, one of the all-time great knocks in the history of the league that made short work of an enormous total (246). In such manner has the left-handed revelation tak­en world cricket by storm, he is now the face of the game’s newest generation. Not since Yuvraj Singh has an Indian batsman struck the ball so cleanly, his bat swing and timing being the two major strengths for the 24-year-old from Amritsar. He already has three hundreds in 20-over cricket on the biggest of stages, and with the other Sharma, Rohit, being in the evening of his career, the country has found a worthy opening replace­ment, ready to take Indian cricket into its upcoming dawn.

Riyan Parag, 23, Batsman: The Finisher

WITH a reverse sweep sailing into the terraces of the Eden Gardens, Parag became the first batsman in the history of the IPL to hit six consecutive sixes, albeit in different overs. What’s more, he did so as the captain of Rajasthan Royals, all of these massive achievements pulled off by the age of 23. For breach­ing the 500-run mark in the previous season, he was retained for a price of `14 crore. Then, in the absence of Sanju Samson, the boy from Guwahati was made leader of the team for the entirety of the 2025 season—the youngest full-time IPL captain since a 22-year-old Virat Kohli, back in 2011. A big-hitting batsman, Parag has already made inroads into India’s T20 set-up but hasn’t been able to pin down his place. But his newfound leadership qualities, coupled with his ever-evolving prowess as a finisher, will pres­ent more international opportunities in the near future.

Harshit Rana, 23, Bowler: Ace of Pace

UNTIL he was 20, few outside the Delhi crick­eting circle had heard of Harshit Rana. Three years on, Rana has not only represent­ed India in all three formats, he also has a Champions Trophy medal to boot. Such has been his meteoric rise. First scouted and then developed to his full potential by Kolkata Knight Riders, his IPL franchise, fast bowling all-rounder Rana played a massive role in their titling effort last season, with 19 wickets. His hit-the-deck abilities were deemed apt for the Test tour of Australia where he made his debut in the opening Test and instantly picked up three wickets. Then, an injury to Jasprit Bumrah before the Champions Trophy gave Rana his first call-up for an ICC event, and again he brought forth his A-game when summoned, with three wickets against Bangla­desh. He featured in the victory against Pakistan as well, against whom he opened the bowling and showed enough signs of being a worthy successor to Hardik Pandya.

Devdutt Padikkal, 24, Batsman: Textbook Strokes

Washington Sundar, 25, Bowler: The Spinmeister

WITH the retirement of R Ashwin, all eyes are now on his state mate Sundar to carry on the great legacy of the off-spinning all-rounder. The boy known as Washy has shown that he can rise to the call in Test cricket, already averaging over 40 with the bat with four fifties to his name, includ­ing one on his debut Test, which just happened to cause a historic series win against Australia in Brisbane, back in 2021. But Sundar’s real specialisation is his off-spin, and when it was unleashed in his return Test after a gap of three years, Sundar dazzled. Against New Zealand in Pune in an otherwise forgetful match (and series) for India, Sundar took 11 wickets, includ­ing a career-best seven-for in the first innings. Later, he was handy in Australia too, but his real test begins now, in Ashwin’s absence and while playing alongside Ravindra Jadeja as his second-in-command.

Sport: Portraits by Lhendup G Bhutia
Gukesh D, 18, Chess Grandmaster: Prime Mover

A SURGE of Indian chess prodigies has been the talk of the world for some time. But it was Gukesh D, all of 18 years, who stunned the world last year when he became the youngest world champion after beating Ding Liren. None of the chess greats, not Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov or Magnus Carlsen, or even Viswanathan Anand, was anywhere close to fighting for the title at that age. Gukesh’s rise has been meteoric considering he was still ranked a junior until a few years ago. What has stood out about him all these years is his mental toughness and fearlessness, which have enabled him to reach the pinnacle of chess. His next frontier would be to reach the heights scaled by Carlsen, a player many consider the greatest ever. It won’t be easy. But if there is anything that switches on Gukesh, it is a challenge.

Manu Bhaker, 23, Shooter: Shooting Star

AFTER the wrestler KD Jadhav won a bronze in 1952, it would take India another 44 years to pick up its next medal in an individual event (also a bronze by Leander Paes in 1996). In the Olympics last year, Manu Bhaker won two, both bronze, in the span of just a few days. She won the medals in the women’s 10m air pistol and the mixed team 10m air pistol (with Sarabjot Singh) events, becoming India’s first athlete since Independence to win two medals at the same Olym­pics. Bhaker was always gifted, and considered one of India’s greatest hopes at the shooting range, but the pressure of the big moment always seemed to get to her. This was most evident in the 2020 edition of the Olympics where she failed to quali­fy in the final of all three events she was participat­ing in. She had choked and the backlash that fol­lowed was so brutal that one would have forgiven her for reconsidering her career. She came back instead four years later, and created history.

Sumit Antil, 26, Para-athlete: Golden Arm

SUMIT ANTIL was training to become a wrestler, but that dream fell apart when he lost a leg at the age of 16. Antil switched to para-athletics, re-purposing his strong wrestler’s upper body to the sport of javelin. He has since dominated his category—the F64 class, where athletes with a prosthetic lower limb compete. He first set a world record in that class in 2019 with a 61.32m throw. He has since broken this record several times, most recently, at the 2023 Asian Para Games when he set the current world record mark of 73.29m. His dominance was evident in the Paralympics last year, where he picked up a gold (to go along with the gold he won in the 2020 edition). He didn’t just have the best throw—a Paralympic record of 70.11m—in the event. His next two throws were also better than anything anyone else mustered.

Aman Sehrawat, 21, Wrestler: The Strong Man

AMAN SEHRAWAT understands perseverance. He was only around 10 when, inspired by Sushil Kumar’s silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics, he got his fam­ily to enrol him in the fa­mous wrestling academy at Chhatrasal Stadium. De­spite personal setbacks— he lost both parents before he turned a teen—he gave himself wholeheartedly to the sport, watching and learning from his heroes at Chhatrasal. He knew he had little else to fall back on. Even as his seniors at the academy were earning laurels for the country, Sehrawat was dominating the age-level events, biding his time. His time, when it came last year at the Olym­pics, couldn’t have come at a more crucial juncture. Indian wrestling had been embroiled in much drama, much of it outside the mat, and then there was the heartbreaking news that Vinesh Phogat had missed her weight-cut by a whisker. The young Sehrawat stepped in. With an unflappable calm and smart take-downs, he de­feated Puerto Rican Darian Toi Cruz to bring home a bronze in the men’s 57kg category. At just 21, he had also become India’s young­est ever Olympic medallist in an individual event. It also meant that for all the turbulence in the sport, India had discovered its latest wrestling star.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, 24 and Chirag Shetty, 27, Badminton Players: The Power of Two

 

INDIA’S badminton ecosystem wasn’t known to produce great doubles play­ers. That changed when Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the pair popularly known as Sat-Chi, burst on to the scene in 2018. The two have since taken Indian badminton to unprecedented highs, winning some of the biggest medals on offer, from golds at the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Asian Cham­pionships to being part of the team that won the Thomas Cup, gold at the Indonesian Open, and much more. The two even rose to clinch the No 1 spot in world rankings twice. What is missing of course is an Olympic medal. They came back empty-hand­ed from the Olympics last year. And since, a combination of factors— injuries, tricky oppo­nents, and bereavement (Rankireddy lost his father earlier this year)— has led the duo to endure a lean season. But they remain Indian badmin­ton’s brightest stars.

Avani Lekhara, 23, Para-shooter: Bull’s Eye

Tajamul Islam, 16, Kickboxer: True Grit

IN the beautiful village of Tarkpora in Kashmir’s Bandipora district, a five-year-old girl watched kickboxers train and felt an unshakable pull. That girl would go on to become the world’s youngest kickboxing champion at seven, clinching gold at the 2016 World Kickboxing Championship in Italy. But Tajamul’s story isn’t just about medals; it is about defiance. In a region where girls are often discouraged from sport, she trained in open fields with makeshift equipment, facing soci­etal scepticism. Unde­terred, she founded the Haider Sports Academy at 11, creating a haven where over 700 students, many of them girls, learn self-defence and resilience. Her accolades include the Jammu & Kashmir State Award and recognition as a brand ambassador for the Government of India’s ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ initiative. In a land marred by conflict, most recently a devastating act of terrorism that killed 28, Tajamul Islam emerges as a symbol of hope, proving that with grit and determi­nation, even the most entrenched barriers can be broken. She once said, “No one is small. It’s their thinking that’s small.” In a country still making its peace with strong girls, Tajamul is already raising an army of them. (By V Shoba)

Ananya PandaycricketentertainmententrepreneursHridhu HaroonRishab Rikhiram SharmasportsSreeleelaVedang RainaYouth 2025