Get the ring

It8217;s one of those forgotten small towns where grand dreams can go unnoticed. That8217;s why at the irrigation department, where Rachna Gupta, 23, plans and designs canals, they ask for the address where she leads an alternate life8212;so they can try to comprehend the buzz in her head.

Quiz her on what it8217;s like to be in the ring, and she transforms from a 5 ft, 60 kg vegetarian who fasts every Saturday, to a fighter who swears by her left hook. 8216;8216;You can8217;t see anyone, you can8217;t hear anyone. You8217;re feeling fear, fear, fear. Will I hit or will I be hit? If she does this, how will I block, and if I block, what will she do? I focus, only on my trainer, because my head doesn8217;t work.8217;8217;

Sister Archana, 24, is a homeopath and Bollywood-kathak fusion teacher8212;and an Indian Boxing Federation referee. Last September, they were even in the ring together.

The bare Vasant Desai stadium, where 34-year-old coach Satish Bhatt8217;s district boxing club occupies one long, buzzing room, is the hub of all the action. Ground Zero for the 25 or so women who train here is a homegrown ring, located in the far corner and spanning the breadth of the room, with battered golden yellow ropes fastened to four windows.

It8217;s where Jarna Sanghvi began boxing last year. The daughter of kirana broker Hasmukhbhai Sanghvi, whose family has been in the business of buying and selling grain for 100 years now, got into boxing by default. Last October she was a national tennis champion, but couldn8217;t afford the Rs 3 lakh for an international coaching camp. That was when Bhatt told Jarna to give boxing a go.

So now she8217;s up by 3.30 am six days a week and trains seven hours in the morning and another six in the evening, usually clad in letterbox red shorts and a matching Boxer 09 tee. A gift from a benevolent NRI uncle to his only sporty relative in three generations? Nah, tailored,

Rs 200, at the local Joshi Sports.

Jarna8217;s fighter pilot dream is on hold8212;the F14 Tomcat posters in the one bedroom apartment are from a different life. Instead, a black boxing bag occupies centrestage8212;in the tiny kitchen. Six months ago, when her parents were out for a wedding, Jarna just switched the fan with the bag.

Sure the guerrilla tactic got a reaction, but the Sanghvis usually humour their younger daughter. They look the other way when she boycotts family weddings and try not to smile when she lectures on healthy eating. 8216;8216;I feel thrilled. I want her to be something,8217;8217; says mother Varsha, who still eats her favourite fried farsan for dinner.

BOXING doesn8217;t have the glamour of tennis or the job security of hockey8212;add female to that and you know it will never earn you an income.

Just the occasional cash prize from a happy chief minister. Even basketball and volleyball are more likely to get you that coveted sports quota job. And when you8217;re from a place like Akola, it8217;s almost guaranteed that the guy your parents want you to marry will do a prompt U-turn when he hears the B-word.

Yet Akola is the classic microcosm of a movement that8217;s gathering force in smaller towns across India. One where women, mostly from not so well-off families, are embracing a sport for that intangible something. 8216;8216;I understand Mallika Sherawat8217;s angst. I8217;ve met so many boxers from Hissar Haryana, who are just like her,8217;8217; says 37-year-old Jay Kowli, the Mumbai-based secretary of the Maharashtra Amateur Boxing Association.

Kowli8217;s been there from the word go. He refereed the first bout of the first boxing nationals in Chennai, four years ago. 8216;8216;Jharkhand vs Tamil Nadu, I was more excited than those two girls.8217;8217;

Now there are some 2,000 boxers across the country, with Kerala and Manipur leading the medals tally. Maharashtra doesn8217;t really figure in the national sweepstakes, but that doesn8217;t deter Akola8217;s spunky fighters like Sania Raut.

The last time the 13-year-old entered the ring, against a boxer from Goa, she lasted three rounds. 8216;8216;That girl was very strong,8217;8217; says Sania, who8217;d been boxing less than two months then.

Eighteen-year-old Kamakshi Dehenka looks mean when she8217;s watching herself punch her reflection in the mirror. But take off the gloves and the daughter of a plywood store owner is painfully shy. She used to work out at the ground every day when Bhatt asked her to give boxing a shot. Now she wants to be a state champ. 8216;8216;It feels very different here,8217;8217; she says quietly. 8216;8216;Josh aata hai.8217;8217; 8216;8216;Dumdaar game hai,8217;8217; frowns 13-year-old Pooja Suresh Bundele, a line of sweat trapped on her fine upper lip hair, neatly oiled plait nodding in agreement.

Sania, who8217;s more milk than muscle, says she wants to show 8216;them8217; that she8217;s no less than any boy. What she won8217;t say8212;but what her chatty mother Namrata helpfully supplies as we walk around the track8212;is that Sania turned to boxing after she had a fight with an overprotective brother about the way she was dressed. 8216;8216;In this region, it8217;s a curse to be beautiful,8217;8217; Namrata says.

Boxing has become an integral part of this mother8217;s world too. Last year, she zipped off with the Akola team to the state championships in Pune as their hastily-appointed manager. 8216;8216;I had to reassure half a dozen mothers that I would look after their daughters.8217;8217; That was easy. In her cellphone-toting, black and white dotted salwar avatar and zip-zap-zoom manner, she8217;s like that best friend8217;s mother you8217;ve always envied.

Jarna8217;s already telling her story on camera. For more than a year now, 37-year-old documentary film-maker Pankaj Rishikumar has been meeting female boxers, trying to crack the Why Boxing mystery. He says he8217;s heard it all8212;empowerment, self-defence, just a hobby, I had nothing better to do. He even met a girl whose violent father forced her to learn the sport so that she would not be as helpless as her battered mother.

Wife Maadhavi T, who travels with him, says the popularity of boxing has been restricted so far because upper middle class girls are not ready to take on the potential physical damage to their face and body.

That8217;s not the only quirky thing about country boxing. There are bindis and bangles in the ring; girls who won8217;t eat meat or can8217;t bear the smell of eggs despite their sapping schedules sprouts top a vegetarian boxer8217;s daily must-haves list; shorts that are worn only when it8217;s mandatory, at competitions. And changing rules in a sport that8217;s still evolving here.

Since 1998, Vijeta Manikrao Ghanbahadur has tried everything. Raw eggs in milk, OD8217;ing on meat and ghee, supplements, ayurveda8230; but her weight hovers stubbornly around the 40 kg mark. Being petite was an irritant she could somehow live with8212;until last year. That8217;s when they upped the lowest pin weight category to 46 kg from 40 kg in the state championships, effectively TKO8217;ing half a dozen boxers like Ghanbahadur.

Just before her dreaded weighing in, the skinny 23-year-old with big worried eyes ate two dozen bananas and chased that down with a jug of water. The needle crawled higher, but only to 42, and she hasn8217;t entered the ring since.

It8217;s not something she took easy. After all, she was one of the first few girls in dusty Akola to hop into the ring in 1998. 8216;8216;Can8217;t you do something?8217;8217; she tries, one last time, as we say goodbye.