By Brandon Thomas
Cornell Athletic Communications
 
Despite being one of squash's top junior players in the world about 10 years ago, Aditya Jagtap '15 said he was under-prepared for the college recruiting process in the United States. Now he's helping to ensure that India's burgeoning exports won't have the same problem.
 
Jagtap returned to his native Mumbai and started a career in the family business, Aastrid International. Now the business manager of Aastrid Life Sciences, the group's research and development arm, Jagtap has added a little taste of squash under the umbrella – Aastrid Recruiting. The goal: Help India's up-and-comers understand the ins and outs of college squash recruiting.
 
"There are so many talented and smart kids in India, but they just don't have the resources and they just don't understand the process," said Jagtap, a three-time selection to the All-Ivy League team after posting a record of 53-15 in matches at Cornell. "So I started the company three years ago to help them with essays, (figuring out) financial aid and giving them advice on what colleges are best for them."
 
It also gives Cornell's squash programs an invaluable resource 7,755 miles away from its home base. While Jagtap's venture works with all sorts of colleges and universities, he wears his self-described affinity of his alma mater on his sleeve. One example is fellow Mumbai native Veer Chotrani '23, the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year, the only freshman on the 2020 All-Ivy League team and the Big Red's first College Squash Association All-American since the man who helped connect him to Cornell.
 
After Jagtap's unofficial ambassadorship, recruiting is handled by David Palmer, the James Broadhead '57 Head Coach of Squash and assistant coach Mark Burke. Having the opportunity to train under Palmer, a two-time world champion, carries a lot of weight.

"Imagine you're playing tennis and Roger Federer is your coach for four years in college," Jagtap said. "You'd jump at that chance."

He speaks from experience. After graduating with a degree in business administration and management, Jagtap took a job in Boston and turned his focus away from high-level squash. During that time, Palmer was hired to take over Big Red squash, and he eventually connected with Jagtap to talk about the ins and outs of the programs.

"So I thought, 'Sure, it would be fun to come back to Cornell,'" Jagtap said. "So it started off with me coming back for three or four weeks, and it ended up being that I loved it so much that I stayed for two or three years."
 
During that time, the competitive fire was stoked. Jagtap started to compete regularly on the Professional Squash Association's World Tour and worked his way up the world rankings. He reached a career-best #65 ranking early in 2020, which put him on the precipice of regularly qualifying into fields for the PSA's most lucrative tier of tournaments.
 
But everything changed with the onset of the global pandemic. The PSA's schedule came to a grinding halt, and Jagtap saw the signs that the wait for normalcy would be lengthy.
 
"We looked at it and figured it would take at least a year to 18 months for a vaccine to come out, and until a vaccine comes out we knew nothing would be the same," Jagtap said. "So I made a conscious choice to come back (to Mumbai) and start working."

Part of that work is essentially acting as a middle man between India's promising junior players and U.S. college programs. An even bigger part is working in a business that specializes in what amounts to being a middle man of pharmaceuticals. When Jagtap's father, Ravindra, started the company in 1997, Aastrid essentially connected suppliers to customers. As the business grew, it started a research and development arm, Aastrid Life Sciences, that creates intermediates – things like dyes and pigments. Aastrid currently has four manufacturing plants in Mumbai, and construction has begun on a fifth.
 
"There are the capsules that you ingest, and then there's the API -- the active pharmaceutical ingredients, that go inside the capsule," Jagtap said. "Then there are intermediates that go into making the API. So the five or six steps that go into making the API that eventually go into the capsule, that's what we do. We contract manufacturing with some of the biggest companies in the world."
 
Even with his renewed concentration in the more traditional working world, Jagtap isn't leaving squash entirely behind him. Some of the game's biggest events are still in his sights – specifically the 2021 PSA World Tour Finals in Egypt; the 2021 World Team Championships in New Zealand and the 2022 Commonwealth Games in England. It's just the week-to-week grind of globetrotting that is no longer in the cards.
 
"I keep trying to maintain my (fitness) level and train as much as I can, but I think internally the focus has shifted toward the next stage of my life – which is work, and I get married next month," he said. "Once I get married, I'm not going to be able to travel six, seven, eight months a year like I was before. I'm just trying to find a better balance."