India
is home to the tiny Tata Nano that bills itself as the world's least
expensive car. The country's Bombay Stock Exchange is Asia's oldest.
Bounded by Pakistan to the west and China and Nepal to the north, India
is also the native soil of Subal Mehta. He's a dynamic 22-year-old
table tennis player with the University of Southern California.USC head football coach Pete Carroll is really the face of the large Los Angeles-based University and his successful Trojans make the headlines almost daily. But Mehta, whose table tennis rating is around 2200, and his USC teammates are starting to get a little media attention because of their winning ways.
Mehta first came to the United States in August 2009. He's a pretty smart table tennis player and a bright guy to boot. He's currently pursuing a master's in aerospace engineering at USC. Five years from now Mehta aspires to work in the sales/marketing division of an aerospace-related company.
While some pursue a college major in history and hope to teach or go to law school, Subal likes challenges with his difficult major of fluid dynamics in aerospace engineering. "It is a tough course, but then as they say, ‘Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.’” Certainly, Subal Mehta doesn't take his eye off the hollow white ball that flies by when he plays table tennis!
A native of a town called Baroda from the Gujaret state in India, Subal comes from a country where cricket is followed “like a religion. So like any other Indian kid, I started off with cricket. However, after different stints in other sports like karate, tennis and rollerblading, it was table tennis which gave me the feeling like ‘Yeah this is where I truly belong,’” says Mehta of the sport. “I say so because right after joining I started winning many tournaments and even representing my state many times and winning accolades for the same.”
Training sessions in Russia in 1997 and “an international brush with the masters like Jan-Ove-Waldner and Peter Karlsson in Sweden in 2008 reaffirmed my faith that table tennis was my forte,” the USC graduate student said. Being ambitious and having a good sense of humor are part of his DNA.
Table tennis, he says, is more a mental than a physical game. "This sport demands one of the fastest reflexes ever, just a fraction of a second is passed and the ball flies to and fro. I like it because it has made me what I am today.'' This self-described "happy go lucky'' guy says he really likes meeting people from all walks of life.
But with solid teammates on the Southern Cal team, the Trojans are often walking tall when it comes to table tennis on the West Coast. Other USC teammates include Misha Kazantsev, Akhilesh Kajaria and Amitabha Ghosh.
Subal plays his heart out when it comes to TT, but has other interests - from karate - he's a Brown Belt Martial Artist - to music. He loves pop, slow rock, and hip hop. He likes playing pool, surfing and racing his bike. A dream vacation trip would take Subal Mehta to beaches in Rio de Janeiro and Spain. The sand, surf and a beach party. It doesn't get any better than that.
Of course, the native of India and the USC table tennis team also have big dreams of punching their ticket to the 2010 NCTTA Championships in Wisconsin.