Fifteen-year-old Jiya Chikara, who is also looking to cut weight to compete, says Vinesh Phogat is an inspiration for her.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Fifteen-year-old Jiya Chikara has woken up before sunrise for as long as she can remember. Bleary-eyed, she leaves for her wrestling academy in Haryana’s Rohtak at 4 a.m., goes to school straight after, and sneaks in two hours of rest only to return to wrestling practice for another four hours in the evening. But for the last three days, her eyes have been glued to her phone, charting the ups, and eventually downs, of wrestler Vinesh Phogat’s journey at the Paris Olympics.
Her excitement quickly turned to disappointment and eventually to anger following Vinesh’s untimely disqualification from her event after being declared 100 grams too heavy to compete. “She has always been my idol, and still is,” says Jiya firmly, who has herself won a gold medal in a national-level wrestling competition organised by DAV Sports.
“Everybody’s heart broke on Wednesday when we found out Vinesh was disqualified. But she remained resilient throughout and that counts for something,” chimes in her father Pradeep Kumar, who is also a professional wrestler.
Jiya, who normally weights 54 kg, also aims to reduce her weight to 50 kg to participate in a competition next month. Currently on a diet of dry fruit, fruit, salad and tiny servings of khichdi and oats, she says whenever she struggles to maintain dietary restrictions, she looks to wrestlers like Vinesh for motivation. The father-daughter duo believes she would have made weight and gone on to play the finals had she been allowed more time.
State-wide inspiration
Wrestling academies for girls, says gender rights activist Sunil Jaglan, have sprouted across the State in recent years following a boom of interest in the sport.
“It was a mix of factors that popularised wrestling among girls, from the 2016 film Dangal to pioneers in wrestling like Geeta Phogat who paved the way for younger women, especially in places like Hisar, Jind, Rohtak and Jhajjar,” he says. The young Olympian herself hails from Charkhi Dadri, not far from the towns where young girls aspire to be just like her.
Sisters Nandini, Neelam and Anjali, all of whom are enrolled in wrestling academies in Hisar district, say wrestlers like Vinesh, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia are their biggest inspirations.
The middle sister, 19-year-old Nandini, calls Vinesh ‘didi’. “If she and other wrestlers had not fought for our safety, girls like us would not have been able to participate in this sport at all,” she says, referring to the allegations of sexual abuse the wrestlers levelled against BJP leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh during his tenure as president of the Wrestling Federation of India.
Soon to begin college, Ms. Nandini says she hopes to keep wrestling simultaneously. While her family has been supportive of her decision so far, Vinesh’s disqualification from the Olympics and her subsequent decision to retire from the sport have planted a seed of doubt in all of their heads.
“Jab aisa kuch hota hai, itni mehnat ke baad bhi, hum sab andar se toot jaate hain, aur hausla khatam ho jaata hai (When something of this magnitude takes place, something breaks inside us and makes us lose hope),” Ms. Nandini says, looking downcast.