New Delhi: When Payal Nag was in Class III, relatives gathered around her parents and said something that no family should ever have to hear: she has no hands, no feet — just give her poison.
Her father, a daily-wage labourer from Bolangir district in Odisha, refused. On Sunday, his 18-year-old daughter stood on a world championship podium with a gold medal around her neck.
The detail, though, is extraordinary. As a young child, Payal was playing on the fifth floor of an under-construction building with her brother when she came in contact with a live electric wire carrying 11,000 volts. The current took both her arms and both her legs. What it could not take was whatever it is that makes some people simply refuse to stop.
Her father Bijay Kumar Nag sent her to the Parvati Giri Bal Niketan orphanage in Bolangir, run by the district administration, where she grew up and eventually found archery. In 2023-24, she trained at the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board Sports Complex in Katra — the very same facility where Sheetal Devi, India’s celebrated armless para-archer and reigning world champion, had honed her skills.
On Sunday in Bangkok, Payal beat that same Sheetal Devi, 139-136, to win gold at the World Archery Para Series. A student had walked past her teacher on the world stage.
She made her national debut only in 2025. Less than a year later, she is a world champion.
There is a particular cruelty in how her story began and a particular beauty in how it is unfolding. The people who suggested poison are watching a gold medal.