Indian wrestler dies in the ring. A 'Dangal' dream can be successful only at the box office, not real life
Twitter/representational
In the sultry heat and dust of a menacing Tuesday, residents of a small town, Bhind, in Madhya Pradesh, started sweating nervously during a state-level mud-wrestling competition — a dangal. The stakes were really high for everyone — a crowd whistling and egging on the wrestlers, a Bullet motorcycle as the top prize, and dreams of making it to the international ring someday.
Ravi Kumar Barod was the 'star pehalwan'.
A 25-year-old national medallist from Indore, a rising star, best among 'second-level' wrestlers. Someone who had everything going for him to be among the top wrestlers in a country which, in recent years, has found a new love for the sport.
On Tuesday, Ravi fought two bouts, one after another — the first one was a 40-minute fight, the second lasted for a little over 30 minutes, according to the organisers. It was when Ravi went for a third bout that his heart gave up.
He started vomiting and fell on the ground. Rushed to a local hospital first, Ravi was referred to Gwalior hospital. Doctors in Gwalior hospital declared him "brought dead".
Some say the organisers advised him to take a break — but he was insistent on continuing.
“He kept insisting that he wanted to fight. He was very keen about the event. We have lost an excellent wrestler,” The Times of India quoted an organiser.
A few others claim the organisers forced him to keep wrestling, despite visible signs of exhaustion.
"Dam phat gaya tha. Pura din kuch khaya nahi (He lost his energy, he hadn’t eaten anything all day). We did not go for the postmortem as it was a death by natural cause,” Scroll.in quoted Ravi's nephew, Adarsh.
While 'modern' wrestling bouts last around eight minutes — three rounds of two minutes each and two breaks of one-minute each in-between — no one except the cheering crowd, Ravi's opponent and the event organisers would perhaps ever come to know what actually made his heart give up. What actually lasted longer — the wrestling bouts? Or the adrenaline rush of the spectators? The organisers' greed for more action, and thereby more money? Or Ravi's own insistence, knowing how his life depended on what he earns from wrestling?
It took wrestlers in India a really, really long bout to half-capture the national imagination.
'Dangals' (mud wrestling bouts), despite their rich history, are still struggling to rise from the depths of poverty and ignominy. Wrestling, outside small towns and unheard-of villages of India, has still a long way to go to become an all-weather favourite, despite the 'medal rush' that the sport, and other poor cousins of cricket, have brought for the country.
There are two reasons why wrestling, or any other sport, managed to get noticed by a cricket-worshiping, but medal-starving India.
Firstly, the media in recent years have been enamoured by female champions from a state infamous for its dismal sex ratio. Had girls not been considered so unwanted, perhaps wrestling or their medals wouldn't have mattered so much to us. It's like when the head of the family is struggling to make ends meet after his retirement and the weakest (in studies) among his children rise up to the occasion. Suddenly, the son widely considered to be worthless becomes a 'honhar beta'.
Secondly, the betrayal by some cricket gods, who stabbed us in the back with their match-fixing bouts, was actually a huge favour to Indian sports.
The media was finally willing to lift its gaze and shift its mikes from the 'paajis' and 'bhais' and 'manyavars'.
(In the interest of the nation, when I say 'sports' in the Indian context, I mean every sport other than cricket. Cricket here is pure religion and the only duty expected from our spoilt brats is — you can lose any test/ODI/T20 but that can't be an India-Pakistan match).
Wrestling perhaps owes more to Bollywood than Haryana and even the Phogats.
Ever since the Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal was released a little less than two years back, there has been no conversation about sports in India without references to the movie or its title. Soon, the film, which has seen record-breaking success, both at home and abroad, also wrestled its way into political and social conversations. Now, every election is a 'Dangal', every woman breaking the barriers of patriarchy and gender stereotypes is fighting a 'Dangal'.
Most importantly, every time a sportsperson rises from the dust and grime of poverty (which almost every second athlete has to battle in India) or breaks free from traditional fetters, their success is measured in the 'Dangal' yardstick.
Before Dangal, it was Chak De! India. But what Shah Rukh Khan did with his upscale "sattar minute", Aamir Khan managed to overpower with his Haryanvi accent, no matter how acquired and pretentious it sounded. The two movies in recent public memory are in a way much like the two older Phogat sisters — Geeta and Babita. You can't really compare whose performance was better.
Indians are very practical when it comes to sports. We reserve our love and respect only for those who get us glory in international events. Just like any strict middle-class father who believes a few words of love will make his children go wayward, we don't believe in encouraging our sportspersons or supporting them financially.
Having children and bringing them up to be doctors or engineers — or even Virat Kohlis — is basically with the idea that children are our budhape ki lathi. Likewise, sportspersons are our fixed deposit and provident fund for national glory.
So, they too know the only season the government, and the rest of the country, remembers them is during the bring-home-medals season.
There is so much pressure that sportsmen are made to believe that they are playing not for themselves, but only for the country. Just try to understand the psychology behind this dictatorship, how nations rule the minds of sportsmen and their careers.
Our governments have successfully drilled this into everyone's head that they are doing a favour to sportspersons by allowing them to represent the nation.
We have often heard sportsmen saying their "only aim and dream is to stand on the international podium, looking at the tricolour going up, our national anthem playing in the background".
Well, it's hard to believe that a toddler learns to run or picks up a plastic racket, thinking of the national flag and anthem.
Every time a sportsperson returns from abroad with a medal around his or her neck, state and central governments proudly dole out cash prizes from the taxpayers' money. The 'indebted' players are forced to thank 'chief minister sahab' and 'prime minister ji'. Every time a government announces a sports university, builds a stadium, it's not because sporting talents need and deserve them — but because the government is so benevolent.
Our governments, in fact, are so generous that they never forget to remind us under whose rule how many medals were won. Or, who got a Padma or Arjuna award or a Khel Ratna.
The message was clear from the very beginning. Sportsmen won't be encouraged and supported. Toil, roll on the mud, sink your face deep in the dirt of impoverishment or run barefoot with cracking heels — you are on your own.
But the moment you achieve something, the credit must go to the government.
Truth be told, the sporting stage in India will never be equal. Only some sports and sportspersons will remain the darlings of the nation.
The rest like Ravi, a name which incidentally means the sun, will either have to recede to the sunset, or wrestle with poverty, anonymity and a government that doesn't care, till his lungs explode and the heart stops beating.
Well played, India!