Indian wrestlers fight over a meaty dilemma

He is not the only one to take this major decision in recent times. Four of the six grapplers have decided to add meat to their diets. Why? Two reasons really. Firstly, our men always struggle to find Indian food when they travel abroad. And secondly, more importantly actually, is what Haryana’s Sujeet Mann — Commonwealth gold medalist — confirms: a bit of meat adds the required muscle power to encounter the heavily-built wrestlers from Central Asian countries, especially Russia.

‘‘Every time we lost in an international event, critics used to say that we — shakahari (vegetarian) wrestlers are no match for the powerful, ‘beefy’ wrestlers from other countries. That will go now,’’ says Mann, who along with Palwinder Singh Cheema — India’s best bet in 120kg weight category, and Ramesh Kumar (66kg), completes the non-vegetarian club in the Indian wrestling camp.

The remaining two — Delhi’s Sushil Kumar and Haryana’s Yogeshwar Dutt — have, however, stuck to their vegetarian habits.

‘‘I am a Brahmin, I can’t take it (meat). We take loads of bread from home whenever we go abroad. One can always have it with juice. And, moreover, potatoes are found the world over. So, we won’t starve,’’ says Sonepat’s 21-year-old Dutt.

‘‘Our dal-roti is more powerful than their meat and we will prove this at Athens,’’ adds Sushil with a smirk, who is also happy that the Wrestling Federation of India has promised to make vegetarian food available during the Indian team’s preparation camp at Sofia next month.

The only problem though — to add to Mann’s example — is that the wrestlers might have a bit of explaining to do now if they come a cropper against the Russians.