HANGZHOU: When he moved to Germany, Anush Agarwalla, a boy from Ballygunge in Kolkata, was just 17. Loneliness was the closest to him in a foreign land, where an Indian teenager found himself out of place. And it was natural. Somebody who had never lived alone was on his own, living with the tag of an outsider, to the extent of being mocked for his equestrian dreams.
Six years later, Anush, astride his horse Etro, found the perfect reply for his critics in Hangzhou.
Leading the charts for India in the team event of dressage, alongside Hriday Chheda, Divyakriti Singh and Sudipti Hajela, Anush first was part of the gold-medal winning quartet who ended a 41-year wait; and he then added a historic first individual medal for the country at the Asian Games in dressage -- a bronze.
