Bindra with the bronze at his last Asian games.
On a sunny afternoon three years ago, Abhinav Bindra was sitting in a restaurant in Mumbai's Bandra Reclamation with a group of friends and acquaintances. Somehow the conversation shifted to, and then settled on, how Bindra never lets his hair down. "Why so serious?" his companions needled him, more than once. With a face shorn of expression, but with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Bindra eventually replied: "I'm only serious when I'm sober."