ROHIT BHANDIYE
PANAJI
At 24, Vidhya Patel is the youngest participant at the ongoing 5th Asia Cup Bridge Championship being held at Taj Cidade de Goa.
Coming from the remote village of Raibidpura in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh, which is around 150 km from Indore, Vidhya’s journey has been truly fascinating and inspiring.
Her village has a tradition where, at the end of each day, the elders used to play a game similar to bridge, and that is how Vidhya got into the sport.
“My father is a farmer. We live in a joint family and my father’s elder brother plays bridge. In fact, in our village, many elderly people play this game. In our village, we don't have any sporting activities. So, when bridge came, we felt we had an opportunity. An opportunity to play some kind of game,” said Vidhya.
“In 2013, bridge was introduced to us in school by Amaresh Deshpande Sir from Pune when he started the Kisan Bridge Club in our village. We started with a mini version of bridge. He used to teach us how to play with cards. When we started, there were around 30 to 40 juniors. We used to play after school hours and, in school, it was treated as an activity, so we enjoyed the card game,” recalls Vidhya about her early bridge days.
Vidhya further added, “We then started participating in national tournaments. We used to go for tournaments together in groups. As time progressed, many members from our group quit the sport either due to studies or family problems. But I continued playing. Coaches also used to come to our village to teach us. One of the foreign coaches, David Stockin from Denmark, also used to come.”
“In 2015, I first participated in the nationals. In 2017, I got selected for the World Championship for the first time. The World Championships were held in France and I was part of the Indian junior team,” said Vidhya, who holds a BSc (Mathematics) degree from a college in Ahmedabad.
Vidhya and her partner Kalpana Gurjar have been playing together for many years. In fact, Kalpana also comes from the same village as Vidhya and is two years senior to her.
Both of them have represented India at the World Championships in France in 2017, China in 2018, Croatia in 2019 and Italy in 2022. At the 2022 World Championship, Vidhya, along with Kalpana, won a silver medal, a creditable feat indeed.
Vidhya’s parents were always supportive of her playing the sport, unlike some of her relatives. However, when Vidhya won a silver medal at the World Championship, they too were proud of her.
Vidhya has also represented India at the 2023 Asian Games in China. “Vidhya and her partner Kalpana Gurjar will be the mainstays of the Indian women's team for another 10-15 years,” says Vinay Desai, coach of the Indian bridge team.
Due to their stupendous achievement, Vidhya and Kalpana have been employed by the Income Tax Department and are posted in Mumbai.
When asked about the future, Vidhya said, “The first thing is that we have to develop bridge in India. I would like young girls to take up this sport. When we have youngsters in our team, then we can do better because now we don't have any. All the ladies are elderly women. If we get more players, then we can do better because we need a stronger team.”
