Shobhayatra

The heptathlon is a seven-event track and field killer. Midway through the sixth event, the javelin throw, Shobha heard her knee snap. 8216;8216;It was my second javelin throw,8221; she later said, 8216;8216;I heard a crack8212;crack-crack. And fell.8221;

Shobha had torn a ligament, possibly shattered her knee joint. She was stretchered off. Team doctor Arun Mendiratta gave her painkillers, strapped up her knee8212;and told her the Olympics were over.

An hour later, the participants were called out for the final event, the 800 m. Shobha, still limping, part of an athletics culture wedded to easy surrender, broke the silence: 8216;8216;I want to go.8221; The doctor stared at her, told her she was risking her career. 8220;No,8221; she said, 8220;I have to go. I have to finish this. I want to finish this.8221;

She ran the first 500 m in distant last place. Then, with 300 m to go, she made her move, a divine wind aiding her8212;and was third at the finish line. 8220;I don8217;t know where I got the strength from,8221; she later recalled, 8220;the crowd, the occasion8212;I just forgot my pain. I told myself, 8216;I can do this.8217; And I did it.8221;

She did it for Dad8212;and for Shashikala, whose story will come later. Shobha, 25, is a railway clerk in Hyderabad. She spent her early years in Hubli, Karnataka. Her father, a humble but remarkably enlightened agriculturalist, encouraged his daughter to indulge her athleticism. 8220;Daddy bolte the,8221; she remembers, in that charmingly accented Hindi, 8220;bhagna hai to PT Usha ki tarah bhago.8221; Run if you want to, but run like Usha.

Daddy8217;s girl ran and jumped and threw. Shobha began with the shot put, then the high jump. Her coach in Mysore introduced her to the pentathlon and finally to her calling, the heptathlon. Somewhere along the line came the national record. Unencumbered by that injury, Shobha was certain to finish in the top six in Athens. Bronze was within smelling distance.

Third place eventually went to a British girl with 6,296 points, just 124 ahead of Shobha. With a good knee, two more attempts at the javelin, a fair chance in the 800 m8212;8216;8216;It is one of my best events8221;8212;Shobha may have been telling us another story.

Life will give her another chance8212;in Beijing 2008, at the Asian Games, World Championship, wherever. It has to. It owes her that; it owes Shashikala that.

JJ Shashikala is the dark secret of that fateful hour. Shobha8217;s twin is a housewife in a small town in Karnataka, far from the big lights of Olympic Stadium. Years ago she, too, was an athlete, won national titles, made it to the Indian selection camp. Her event, too, was the heptathlon.

In 1999, it all ended, just like that. Shashikala was training for the javelin throw. She hurled it far and away, but only heard her knee go crack8212;crack-crack. She tore a ligament, injured her knee joint8212;and never touched her spikes again. When she fell to the ground on August 21, Shobha8217;s first thought was8212;Shashikala. No! This can8217;t be happening again8230;

Shobha and Shashikala are more than twins. They are two lives, one instinct. 8216;8216;When she has a headache,8221; says Shobha, 8216;8216;I get one too. It may be a day later, but it comes. It doesn8217;t matter where I am.8221;

In that hour, that crazy, tempestuous hour, the sisters, one in Hubli, the other in Hellas, were in communion. Shobha had to run, just had to. She had to finish a race, you see, a race Shashikala had begun.