She's a tigress on the lanes, a motherly figure off it. Even as she prepares for the gruelling competition on a dark and gloomy Thursday evening last week at the National Bowling Championships in Bengaluru, Sabeena Saleem gently tells her Tamil Nadu teammate hunting for a Dolo that she has some in her kit and will give it to him in a bit. Sabeena Ma'am is the go-to granny for her team -- be it for advice on how to score the perfect ten or just kill a mild fever.
"They respect me, and are even afraid when I enter the alley," she says. With good reason. With 12 titles under her belt, and eyeing the 13th, in her forays at the nationals, she walks like a champion around the venue with shiny wooden lanes, white pins, bowling balls of different hues and fit, young people hoping to make their mark in a game which is slowly evolving from a time-pass, elite sport to hard-nosed competitions.
