Robin Uthappa, who played a huge role in India’s 2007 T20 World Cup win in South Africa, had a difficult childhood due to his bout with epilepsy and the side-effects caused by the medication he was taking.
The medication resulted in stunted growth and resulted in mental health issues for a young Uthappa, who went on to overcome those issues and played 46 ODIs and 13 T20Is for India and rubbed shoulders with the who's who of Indian and world cricket.
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"I had to take medication for that (epilepsy) which alters your hormones quite a bit. Between the age of 11 and 13.5, I was taking these steroids which were playing a little bit of havoc with my hormones and my system, so it kind of altered the way I grew up," said Uthappa in a chat show Homerun with AV with sports commentator Arun Venugopal.
"It was getting to me emotionally because it also kind of stunted my height a little bit. When I look at myself, I know that I have got very long limbs. My arms and my legs are pretty long, but I have got a pretty short torso in comparison to my limbs,” he further said.
Mental health and depression talk have become relevant recently, especially after the actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s untimely demise as the 34-year-old Bollywood star hanged himself in his Bandra apartment on June 14, 2020.
The Karnataka-born player recently revealed that he battled extreme depression and even had suicidal thoughts at one point in time. He also talked about his issues with weight and why he cannot afford long physical breaks from training.
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Uthappa, meanwhile, revealed how he keeps himself mentally fit and going. “Having said that, it's something I have accepted that it's something I have to keep working on from time to time," he explained.
“There are times I have to keep bobbing between putting on weight and losing weight. I go through it knowing I have to do it, and mentally it keeps me sharp as well. There are times when I have had a very long season and I really want to switch off. But I know that when I switch off and if I let myself go, I have to work doubly hard when I get back to training," he said.
He also felt that he would never play for India again after the 2007 World cup debacle in West Indies, where India was eliminated in the league stages after losing to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
"When we lost in the first round, common sense…who would you cut? The youngest guy in the block. You just say now let's get back to winning ways," he said.
"We went to the (T20) World Cup and we were a very young side. For me, I had confidence going my way from the fact that I had done well in the Oval and won a game we were unlikely to win. We lost the game in Lord's but I still fared well there," he said.
(Times of India inputs)
