When Khushbu was 14 years old, she encountered several boys playing sepaktakraw, a renowned sport in Malaysia, at Bareilly's Major Dhyanchand Stadium SAI centre. Initially, she mistook it for a variation of volleyball. Keen to learn more, she approached her father, Gopal, who worked as a home guard stationed at the stadium, and inquired about the sport.
“There is a sports hostel at the stadium, and only boys from the north east region used to play the sport. My father asked one of the athletes about the game and then explained it to me,” Khushbu tells the media. Khushbu was left awestruck by the game and insisted to her father that she wanted to play the sport.
“The coach told my father that they would need three more girls, so he started a coaching programme for the girls. I brought three of my friends from school. All of us were in athletics, and the game is so unique that they also wanted to give it a shot,” she says. Cut to the present, Khushbu was part of the team that won India’s first-ever medal in women’s sepaktakraw at the Asian Games.