Opinion Behind Fauja Singh’s many accomplishments lay a simple joy

If Forrest Gump had to wear leg braces because his back was “as crooked as a politician”, Fauja Singh had such weak legs that he couldn’t walk properly until he was five years old. Both outran their limitations, and kept running. If the story of Tom Hanks’s character was a sprint through mid-20th-century American history, the supercentenarian’s life must have been a marathon. He was born in the year of King George V’s Delhi Durbar, was three years old when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and the world plunged into war, and 36 when India won its Independence. On the day he died, the second Indian in space was preparing to return to Earth.

Fauja Singh discovered his joy in running later in life, and in the wake of sorrow, when he had moved to the UK following the deaths of his wife and one of his children. It was a chance meeting with the man who would go on to become his coach that saw him take wing. He ran nine full marathons — setting records for his age group — between 2000 and 2013, when he retired. In Toronto in 2011, he became the first centenarian to finish a marathon. He quickly rose to fame after appearing in an Adidas advertising campaign that also featured the likes of Muhammad Ali and David Beckham. Through it all, he donated most of his earnings from brand endorsements to charity.

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Sikhs in the City, Fauja Singh’s running club and charity in London, is reportedly planning a series of events to celebrate his life and achievements. In a moment of mourning, and while reckoning with the tragic nature of his death in a hit-and-run, it’s important to find time and space to do the same: To remember the many feats and more joys of a man who, at the age of 95, found life so “beautiful” that he “just didn’t feel like dying”.