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Karate kid
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The young and versatile Pratyusha looks beyond martial arts
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Pratyusha a bundle of talent Photo: K. Gajendran
Articulate and intelligent, 12 year old T. Pratyusha is not just another young karate champ. She has bagged accolades and achieved excellence in various fields ranging from martial arts such as karate and taekwondo, to fashion, singing, television and films.
She took up karate at the age of two. That was when she started following her brother Pawan to his karate classes.
The techniques and movements of the sport, called `katas' came easily to her thanks to her natural agility and learning ability. By the age of six she had earned a black belt. Guided by coach G. Janardhan Reddy she improved very quickly and many more honours followed.
These included medals in national and state level karate championships such as the Rajiv Gandhi memorial karate championships at Warangal, national Martial Arts championship at Kazipet, All India Open martial arts championships, All India karate open championships, and AP state open karate and taekwondo championships from 1996 onwards. She has also been honoured with the Ugadi Puraskar by the Madras Telugu Academy.
Pratyusha was also selected to act in a film titled Balaveerulu wherein she enacted an action role, which required her to display some of her karate skills. Besides this she has performed martial arts demonstrations at International Film Festivals for children and also given an exhibition of karate before a conference of the Telugu Association of North America (TANA).
This ninth standard student of the Vindhya Valley High School in Karimnagar district is the daughter of T. Manohar and T. Prabhavathi.
"I took up karate mainly to learn self defence," says Pratyusha. "I liked the sport because of the agility, speed and power that can be developed. But I am thinking of shifting to judo after sometime because that is a more widely practised sport," she adds.
Ultimate aim
"Since judo is an Olympic sport, it gives its players more scope to participate in events and excel at the international level. If I take up judo and if I am able to do well at it, my ultimate aim would be to get a medal in the Olympic Games," she says.
Pratyusha also takes care not to neglect her studies. Her goal in life is to become an IPS officer and she is greatly inspired by the career of the well known police officer Kiran Bedi among others.
"But in order for her to attain the pinnacle and achieve everything that she has the potential to achieve, we need some funds. We hope that the government will come forward to help us in this endeavour," says Pratyusha's mother T. Prabavathi.
"The government itself has recognised her talent and given her several awards. So we are hoping that the government will also help us to provide Pratyusha all the financial support that she needs to achieve her goals," she says.
ABHIJIT SEN GUPTA
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