India, Aug. 12 -- Process is the word most elite shooters use while dissecting their seemingly static sport. Somewhere in the finite moments between breaths and beats lurks the perfect nanosecond to pull the trigger. Finding it - therein lies the 'process' - holds the key to a perfect 10.9, and yet, on a given day, even that might not suffice. The perfect shot may not be perfect on the given day if it's not fired at the perfect moment.

Submitting yourself to those variables and still finding the drive to keep shooting, hour after hour, year after year requires an obsessive, even meditative, pursuit. If you spoke to Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil three years back, you'd know you're conversing with a proverbial shooting monk.

"I was a nerd go...