When the 16-year old's dream-run in the recent All-India Inter-School shooting competition at Shimla culminated into a Best-shooter-of-the-championship Award (in International Shooting Union rules) and a gold medal, an entire batch of aspiring shooters from SES would have been proud of her.

At Shimla, where SES made a clean sweep in the junior women's open sight category, Reshma scored 332 out of 400 and won comfortably even as last year's champion and friend Sayali Joshi had to settle for the silver medal with 330. Jagruti Sankhe won the bronze. Reshma had finished fifth last year. SES also topped the table with 12 medals.

The team of Jagruti Sanke, Sheetal Kharat and Dipti Chitnis got the silver in the junior women's while the sub-junior team of YogitaGawade, Prachi Dahisarkar and Suhas Palkar bagged silver in same event.

Another sub-junior team comprising Chaitnya Raut, Siddesh Sawant and Mayur Ghadge won silver in the open sight (National rules) men.

Shooting comes naturally to the first year junior college student for, in just two years, Reshma has done pretty well. The National Cadet Corps (NCC), which has helped produce many shooters of international calibre, ignited the fire in her which later exploded at Simla.

Reshma went to Ambernath as a junior wing cadet of NCC Air-wing two years ago and won a gold medal while impressing MN Phansekar, her school principal.

That was the stepping stone for the girl who has aimed for an Olympic gold. Two hours a day on the Shailendra school range is her training schedule with her family -- along with three sisters, two elder and one younger -- fully behind her in support.

Trained by Mahesh Loima, a security personnel with Indian Airlines, and state coach Sanjay Chakraborty, her daily training includesbody positioning, exercise to keep muscles steady and focusing on the target.

Loima said: ``She will have to practice hard. From now on, we will be at the range everyday for three hours. She has to improve her concentration and control rotating her eyes.''

The shy Reshma, who is also interested in archery, says, ``I get 100 per cent points during practice. Somehow, during the competition, I become circumspect. But I am trying hard to change this. I hope to be a much improved shooter by the Nationals in December.''