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Surfing is not a popular sport in India. But it has started making waves, thanks to Ishita Malaviya, a young woman from Mumbai.
The 29-year-old, who is India's first professional surfer, was named in the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, which features young entrepreneurs, leaders and changemakers across Asia, all under the age of 30, who are challenging conventional wisdom and rewriting the rules for the next generation.
She is the brand ambassador for Roxy swimwear and her growing influence has led to several high-profile brands and charities signing her up in the past few years, reported the Olympic Channel.
Ishita has taken part in several international surfing competitions in the United States, Australia and Asia.
But her goal is not to win medals and accolades.
In fact, she avoids ultra-competitive surfers in favour of those who simply want to enjoy the waves and promote a healthy lifestyle.
Her mission is to integrate communities through sports and increase gender equality in sports participation. She believes the country's huge coastline, coupled with its 1.3 billion population, is ideal to bring together diverse groups of people.
For this purpose, she established the Shaka Surf Club in a small village near Udupi in Karnataka with her partner, Tushar Pathiyan, 30.
"When we started out, people thought we had lost our minds, become beach bums and were wasting our time," said Ishita, who became aware of the surf scene in India in 2007 when she and her boyfriend were studying at Manipal University.
A German exchange student they had befriended told them about a seaside Krishna ashram nearby - the devotees were mainly from California and spent most of their free time riding the waves.
"The ashram offered to teach us if we brought at least 10 people, so we made a group and that's when we first called ourselves the Shaka Surf Club," Ishita told the Financial Express. "But every Sunday at 6am when we called our friends, they'd be too hung over. So it would just be the two of us."
Shaka is also known as the "hang loose" gesture associated with Hawaii and surf culture.
However, sheer excitement and the motivation to do something different were not enough to keep their project going.
"I sold things like my sewing machine and an Ab King Pro exercise machine online and Tushar would buy shoes from a shop in Mumbai and then re-sell them in Manipal. Finally, we managed to buy a second-hand surfboard and started sharing it," said Ishita.
The journalism graduate then decided to take up the sport full-time along with Tushar, who was studying architecture.
Since 2011, the pair have been trying to encourage the fishermen and their children at the obscure Kodi Bengre village on the shores of the Arabian Sea, 16km from the temple town of Udupi, to take up surfing.
"The ocean was just a source of income for them; I wanted to make it a source of joy," said Ishita.
The lack of awareness about sea safety had led to several drowning incidents in the area and the locals were scared. But Ishita and Tushar managed to get them fascinated in something they had never seen before.
"The kids were right by the water and playing cricket," she said. "Slowly, some of them agreed to put on life jackets and take lessons.
"They had this inferiority complex and thought they were cursed to be living by an ocean instead of in a big city. But we wanted them to know how pristine and beautiful their place is and how they should value it and be proud of it.
"We wanted to overcome any class divide and make it the coolest village ever."
In addition to surfing, the Shaka Surf Club teaches the kids break dancing, yoga, skateboarding and even runs a beach clean-up programme.
Ishita had personal barriers to break through, too.
Culturally, Indian parents prioritise education above sport. Her decision to surf full-time was initially opposed by her family members.
However, after witnessing how much happiness the sport gave their daughter, her parents caved in to the point where she even taught her mother to catch her first wave.
Ishita maintains that, despite all the difficulties she has had to overcome, including weak upper-body strength, the waves have made it worth the ride. It's this empowering feeling she takes away from the ocean that she is on a mission to spread.
"If I still lived in Mumbai, I probably wouldn't have had an opportunity to hang out with a fisherman and his kids. The beautiful thing about surfing is that it equalises," she told Vice, a Canada-based magazine which focuses on arts, culture and news.
While surfing will make its Olympic debut at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in 2021, it is uncertain whether longboard-specialist Ishita will compete.
But, given her preference for lifestyle over competition, she will be continuing to make a mark in the sport anyway.
"If I still lived in Mumbai, I probably wouldn't have had an opportunity to hang out with a fisherman and his kids. The beautiful thing about surfing is that it equalises."
- Surfer Ishita Malaviya
