Nikhat Zareen writes: Parents call me, want their girls to box, it’s a big deal

When we go abroad for competition, we don’t get crowd support. So this time, playing in front of the home crowd was a new experience for me. They have always supported me. I remember in 2018, when India was hosting the World Championships, I wasn’t a part of the team and was there as a spectator. On the final day, when Mary di (Mary Kom) had her bout, the whole arena was shouting, “Mary! Mary!” I got goosebumps listening to them.

The same thing happened to me when I was in the final. The crowd was shouting, “Nikhat! Nikhat!” I got emotional and there were tears in my eyes. I will remember that moment for the rest of my life.

When I won the gold in the last World Championship, I remember getting phone calls from parents, quite a few from Nizamabad district (in Telangana), who wanted their daughters to take up boxing. They wanted to admit their daughters to an academy and asked whether I would train them or open an academy.

For me, that was a big achievement, especially coming from a minority community where people don’t support their daughters coming out of their houses and pursuing sports like boxing.

Now things have changed — parents want to send their children into this sport. For me, that is a huge achievement — that I could change the way they think and I could inspire them to take up boxing. I would be extremely happy if people see my achievements and pick up boxing. As a role model, I will try to keep inspiring young kids to enter sports.

When I became World Champion in 2022, people’s expectations increased immediately. Now people know that I have back-to-back gold medals and I was undefeated in 2022. So if I come back with a bronze, that would be surprising for them. In the end, I know I gave it my 100 per cent despite the result. This time around, there was the home crowd and the expectation that I have to win the gold, come what may.

To be honest, this was the toughest tournament of my boxing career. I had to cut down weight and then fight six times — and all of it was back-to-back since I was unseeded and didn’t get byes. It was tough, but in the end it was a good experience.

For me, it was about facing a new Olympic weight category and facing opponents, not just in my weight class but in the 48 kg and 52 kg categories as well. This competition mattered, but not as much as the 2024 Paris Olympics will. I wanted to learn from my mistakes. My next focus is the Asian Games and the Paris qualification.

This has been a great achievement not just for me but also my district. I come from a small town. In fact, people don’t even know where Nizamabad district is. When people ask me where I am from and I say I’m from Telangana, they don’t recognise the name at times. But when I say Hyderabad, they recognise it.

I grew up in a small city where I watched the world from my TV. That was the time when I didn’t even have a phone. I belonged to a small, middle-class family where girls were expected to go to school and directly come back home. To go from that lifestyle to becoming a boxer, meeting big people from different industries because of it, making new friends, exploring new places and gaining my freedom — I consider myself lucky that God gave me this gift of boxing. Sometimes, I feel I didn’t choose boxing, but boxing chose me.

To me, coming from a small city and becoming World Champion shows people the way that your dreams can come true as well. It’s important to dream but working for those dreams is just as important. And I did that and now I’m seeing the fruits of that hard work. (As told to Shashank Nair)

National Editor Shalini Langer curates the ‘She Said’ column