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Journalism of Courage
A decade ago, Vijay Hooda gave up his job as an accountant in Gurgaon following an SOS call from his village-sarpanch friend in Rurkee Kiloi in Rohtak. The boxing coaches at the Shaheed Batun Singh Stadium — named after a Kargil war hero — had quit and left the trainees in a lurch. Vijay was known in village circles as a keen follower of the sport with the habit of taking down notes after watching bouts. When the opportunity came to guide budding women boxers, he couldn’t say no despite not being a qualified coach.
The societal stigma of girls in boxing and the belief that they would not find a groom was a major hurdle.
On Saturday, Vijay sat surrounded by his women trainees as they watched on television the latest star from the Rurkee academy shine at the Boxing World Championships in Liverpool. Minakshi Hooda’s family, extended family, well-wishers and the trainees packed into a cramped room as the 24-year-old stormed into the final of the World Championships by outclassing Mongolia’s Lutsaikhany Altantsetseg 5-0. For Vijay it was a day on which another of his boxers excelled on the international stage. The roll of honour list of the Rurkee academy is impressive: 2017 World Youth Champion Jyoti Gulia, Asian Championship bronze medallist Shikhsha Narwal, 2021 Asian Championship bronze medallist Monika to name a few. A dozen national junior and youth medalists have also trained at this dilapidated boxing hall.
After Minakshi reached the final, Vijay turned around and told his trainees, “Agar Jyoti ya Minakshi banana hai toh boxing ka bhoot hona chahiye dimag main. (If you want to become a Jyothi or a Minakshi you need to have an undying passion for boxing).” Vijay became a qualified coach five years ago.
“I was inspired by seeing Mary Kom’s bouts at the Olympics on TV, she had this boxing ka bhoot I talk about. I wanted the village girls to have the same passion. Minakshi has the willpower and passion,” Vijay said.
The mood in the village was not in favour of women taking up boxing, Vijay recalled. But he was determined not to quit.
“My boxers, including Minakshi, would initially face a lot of resistance from their homes. Village elders would tell me or their parents that the girls will beat their husbands and nobody will marry them,” Vijay said.
So strong was the opposition to girls from the village boxing that Vijay hid the fact that he took a team for Senior Nationals in 2016.
“I would tell everyone that we are going for a yoga camp. In 2015, seven of my trainees were in the Rohtak sub-junior team which defeated Bhiwani and won the team trophy at the sub-junior state championship in Rohtak. A year later Shiksha and Monika won medals at the Haridwar Senior Nationals. The villagers thought we were going for yoga. Post their medal , the village would accept the sport as their own,” Vijay said.
When he started off, the self-styled coach mined boxing videos, read coaching manuals and went to boxing tournaments to pick the brains of coaches. When he got the opportunity he also asked top boxers like Vijender Singh, the Olympic medalist and CWG champion Akhil Kumar about the strategy.
“Initially, I would come to the village every weekend to oversee the training. But once both the coaches left after some months and I decided to be the coach. I would watch videos of boxers like Akhil Kumar and Vijender Singh, and also read up about different techniques of boxing. I attend the district and state boxing tournaments. So my notebooks would be filled with the drawings of various counter attacks or combinations of punches,” Vijay said.
Lack of funds was a problem at the very start and not having a job didn’t help. Vijay would dig into his personal savings to get two pairs of gloves, two boxing pads and a punching bag from the Rohtak market and set up a make-shift boxing ring.
But things changed for the academy and Vijay when Gulia became the world youth champion in 2017. She got a job with the Railways along with others — Shikhsha and Monika. The three boxers pooled prize money and bought new equipment for the academy. Minakshi too contributed when she got an ITBP job a few years ago.
“I have been lucky that all my boxers, who get jobs, repay by getting the equipment and bearing expenses for other boxers. With time, villagers too have been contributing but the biggest reward for me is to see more than 70 girls train here,” Hooda said.
With Minakshi set to face Kazakhstan’s multiple-time Worlds gold medallist Nazym Kyzaibay in the final on Sunday, Hooda is hopeful his ward will become the first senior world champion from the village. “It will be the biggest medal. For Minakshi and this village.”
