{"slides": [{"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-1.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-1.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"></div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "Dang, Gujarat", "track_id": "", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-1.height-876.jpg\" />"}, {"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-1.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-1.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"><p>By all accounts, Jignisha\nGamit of Singana village in Dang district of Gujarat, meets every target she\nsets for herself. With a BA in Gujarati from the Sarkari Vinayan College, she\nhas attained the highest education level of any woman in her immediate cluster\nof villages. But beneath this decidedly bookish exterior lurks a toxophilite with\ndeadly aim \u2013 Jignisha is the female archery champion of Dang district.</p></div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "Dang, Gujarat", "track_id": "616982445", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-1.height-876.jpg\" />"}, {"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Jignisha-2.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Jignisha-2.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"><p>When an instructor\ncame to teach archery at a sports complex in Saputara town, around\u00a0 75 kilometres away,\nJignisha was the self-professed worst student. \u201cIt took me 15 days to finally hit the target,\u201d she\nchuckles. She can laugh now, 10 years later. She was in Class 8 then (at the\nnearby Ritambhara Kanya Vidhyamandir\u00a0school) and determined not only to match her peers, but to surpass them.\u00a0By\nthe time she reached Class 11, she had become Dang\u2019s female district champion \u2013\nthe first of five such victories.\u00a0</p><p>She went on to rank eighth in a subsequent\ninter-district competition. Her most formidable\nlocal opponents were students from the Eklavya Model Residential School in Ahwa,\nDang\u2019s district headquarters. Equipped with state-of-the-art athletic\nfacilities, they were the clear favourites to win any district match. But\nJignisha beat them all \u2013 not once, but five times, she says, between the years\nof 2013 and 2016.</p></div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "Dang, Gujarat", "track_id": "616982439", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Jignisha-2.height-876.jpg\" />"}, {"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Jignisha-Picture-3.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Jignisha-Picture-3.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"><p class=\"MsoNormal\">Dang, a sparsely-populated district,\namong the poorest in India, has a large swathe of\u00a0deciduous forest, and its Adivasi inhabitants\nhave a long history of archery. Previous\ngenerations relied heavily on their bows and arrows to fell game such as\nleopards, deer, and rabbits. They don\u2019t hunt any longer; the practice is\nprohibited by the forest department, with stiff penalties imposed on poachers.\nBesides, not many wild animals are left to hunt.</p>\n\nHere, a woman is\ngrazing her cattle next to a plot of land that is being prepared for planting\nonce the rains come; it\u2019s not exactly ideal terrain for leopards anymore. But\nthe local legacy of archery lives on in schoolyards and sports complexes\nthroughout the district, and Dang\u2019s young archers perform well at\u00a0competitions.</div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "Dang, Gujarat", "track_id": "616982433", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Jignisha-Picture-3.height-876.jpg\" />"}, {"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-4.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-4.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"><p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJignisha\u2019s own\narchery ambitions were put to rest in 2016 when the 22-year-old married Vipul\nGamit, who was elected <i>sarpanch</i> of Singana, a village of around 850 people, shortly\nafter their wedding. Ensconced in her new domestic life and burdened by a\nhigh-profile public role, Jignisha is no longer at liberty to pursue archery\nprofessionally. Archery is also a prohibitively expensive sport \u2013 her personal\nequipment recently broke, and she hasn\u2019t managed to replace it. A local NGO recently\noffered to send her to a prestigious archery camp free of charge, but she\ndeclined.\u00a0 \u00a0<br/></p>\n\n</div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "The Dangs, Gujarat", "track_id": "616982424", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-4.height-876.jpg\" />"}, {"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-5.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-5.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"><p>Since college,\nJignisha has worked at a nearby Learning Resource Centre (LRC) maintained by a\nlocal NGO. Maths is her favourite subject to teach, and she particularly enjoys\ndevising activity-based learning modules for her students. In September 2016,\nher teaching duties suddenly expanded and Jignisha soon found an outlet for\nboth her athletic and pedagogical passions. The LRC purchased two archery practice\nsets in her honour and established an informal archery training course for\nlocal children. Now, every evening, she presides over a small army of\nyoungsters trying their hands, arms and eyes at the finicky sport.</p></div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "Dang, Gujarat", "track_id": "616982418", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-5.height-876.jpg\" />"}, {"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-6.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-6.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"><p>Jignisha does not seem\nto resent her withdrawal from competitive athletics, and appears to derive\nalmost as much enjoyment from mentoring a new generation of archers as she probably\ndid from performing herself. Her students evince varying degrees of talent \u2013 10-year-old\nRahul is the best, she confides in us \u2013 but they are all clearly having a\nblast.</p></div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "Dang, Gujarat", "track_id": "616982409", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-6.height-876.jpg\" />"}, {"type": "image", "show_title": "True", "album_title": "Rounding up bull\u2019s-eyes, not bulls, in Dang", "src": "/media/original_images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-7.jpg", "src_resized": "/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-7.height-876.jpg", "description": "<div class=\"rich-text\"><p class=\"MsoNormal\">If provided the necessary support, Jignisha\nsays, she wants to resume her archery career someday. For now, she hopes to become\na teacher and is planning to apply for a correspondence course in Education. Watching\nher wield her bow and arrow \u2013 eyes narrowed, jaw clenched, muscles as taut as\nher bowstring \u2013 there is no doubt that the impending B.Ed applications will be\nno match for her steely will.</p>\n\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Whooosh \u2013 another arrow slices through\nthe heat-oppressed air to land, with a resounding thwack, precisely in the centre\nof its target.\u00a0</p>\n\nAnother bulls-eye by Jignisha.\u00a0</div>", "album_description": "<p>Jignisha Gamit of Singana\nvillage\u00a0meets every target she sets for herself. Listen to the story of this archery champion\nof Dang in Gujarat, among the poorest districts in India, in this Talking Album</p><p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>", "url": "/kn/albums/rounding-up-bulls-eyes-not-bulls-in-dang/", "slide_photographer": ["Olivia Waring"], "image_captured_date": "08 May,2019", "slide_location": "Dang, Gujarat", "track_id": "616982406", "embed": "", "carousel_html": "<img src=\"/media/images/Edited-Jignisha-Picture-7.height-876.jpg\" />"}], "authors": [{"type": "inline", "show_title": "False", "name": "Olivia Waring", "bio": "Olivia Waring is pursuing graduate studies in medicine and humanitarian engineering at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked at PARI in Mumbai from 2016-17, supported by an American India Foundation Clinton Fellowship. \r\n", "twitter_username": "", "facebook_username": "", "email": "", "website": "", "author_url": "/kn/authors/olivia-waring/"}]}

talking_album