When Shiva Keshavan boarded the flight back to India from Florence mid-January this year, he was perhaps the only one on the plane wearing a mask, squirting sanitizer on his palms and keeping his elbows off the armrests. "I probably looked like a freak then," says the six-time Winter Olympian, who retired two years ago.
Now that the virus has turned into a full-blown pandemic, putting countries under partial or complete lockdown, Shiva looks back at his decision of flying out of Italy, a country since brutally ravaged by the virus, as timely, almost psychic. Post retirement, Shiva has been dividing up his time between India and Italy, home to one half of his extended family (his mother Rosalba is Italian, his father Keshavan is from Kerala) and his closest friends from university. "At that time there was news of a virus from China, but there was no reason to panic. Its scope or severity wasn't known. But with tons of doctor friends, some of them on the IOC's medical commission, I had a feeling things were about to take a drastic turn and knew I just had to come back."
Formerly a luger, Shiva misses the thrill of competition - propelling himself down a steep-banked ice track, feet first and not having an athlete's routine and obsessions kicking bout within him. He heads the Olympians Associations of India, a non-profit funded by Tata trust, a support group if you must, of athletes who're transitioning from the rush of Olympic appearances to the workaday life of a retired sportsperson.
"Two years ago I went through this exact phase after more than two decades in the sport," says Shiva. "It's a feeling of absolute void when you wake up one morning and realize you don't have the skills or the preparation to join a professional career anywhere close to the level you were in. Most of us retired athletes don't have health insurance, life insurance, and are struggling with sport-related injuries and mental health issues from not playing competitive sport anymore. Our upskilling and mentorship programmes helps in educating these pool of former Olympians in basic things like English language, social media, computer science and management courses and networking to get into corporate roles. We also fund them to go to academies and speak to the young athletes and share their experiences."
Shiva is also in talks with the administrations in Ladakh, Kashmir and his home state, Himachal Pradesh for his pet project of setting up a residential winter sports academy. "I'm looking at a private-public partnership model. But we need a buy-in from state governments who appreciate what winter sports can do for development, even in terms of tourism and jobs. It's a whole new Olympiad. The whole buzz about developing Kashmir and Ladakh also gives us a good opportunity to pitch in with the idea. Himachal should have been at the forefront of winter sport in all these years, but it isn't, so they have missed that bus. They still have time to catch up and show interest." Now, with the country shuttered, all talks are on ice.
Shiva is now in Wayanad, Kerala, with his parents and younger brother, self-isolating with the occasional brave visit to the grocer. He face-times his cousins and aunts in Italy, all of whom are also confined to their homes. "We talk of the contagion so much, but the mental toll of being restricted to our homes is invisible and huge. We all need support. Luckily for me, I've lived all these years in isolation in the mountains, in the midst of a forest, growing our own produce, in Himachal. It's almost like I've been training for this day my whole life."