Narsingh Yadav: A look inside the outsider wrestler

A decision made in courts may well be debated if Jordan Burroughs, Aniuar Geduev impose their might on the 74 kg men’s freestyle and relegate Narsingh Yadav to outside the podium but there’s no dearth of confidence.
While he was in his hometown Mumbai for a few days at the height of the Sushil Kumar controversy, trying his darnest to not let the kerfuffle ruin his daily training regimen, Narsingh was confident he would get his second chance at trying to win an Olympic medal. The 2012 outing had ended non-nondescriptly but he betrayed no nerves when awaiting this storm to settle down. “It never shows on his face. But he’s always confident when it comes to wrestling,” older brother Vinod, says.

WATCH VIDEO: What Happens In The Narsingh Yadav Controversy Now?

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Father Pancham Yadav who ran a dairy at Jogeshwari – a Mumbai western suburb, with a cramped cow shed and one of the smallest urban akhadas – had known he was a fine wrestler in his youth, but without a sports-quota job, he had to hold back his dreams. His children though were encouraged, and fed to become wrestlers. “I’ve seen father work very hard. We stayed in the tiniest of Mumbai houses, but always ate like Kings,” Narsingh says. It’s difficult to explain a wrestling father’s priorities — the roof on the head might be a tin shed, but there’s as many almonds as there’s rice in the monthly ration.

Narsingh grew up, the Mumbai style: humming 90s Bollywood and feasting on idli-dosa when the pocket money chimed, standing by the road-side stall. Accustomed to waking up at 5 am – he looked up to Uday Raj Yadav, a local champ. When he was spotted by Mumbai-based SAI coach Jagmal Singh, he was studying at a Hindi medium school and was painfully shy. His coaches remember him giving his first media interview, speaking like a Virar Fast.

Unpolished and unaffected. Humble and reserved, though he was marked out for big things by talent scouts for funding way back at the same time that Abhinav Bindra and Yogeshwar Dutt were. Father Pancham had ensured his younger son looked the part of pocket-sized Hercules even when he was pre-teen young. “Perfect height to weight to breadth ratio,” Vinod says.

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Narsingh Yadav stood out on Mumbai’s circuit but Maharashtra wrestling had fallen into a prolonged decadence 60 years after Kashaba Jadhav won India its first Olympic medal in the sport. There was the leaden-footed reluctance to switch from mud to mat, and a generation of wrestlers who settled for smaller titles, bonsai aspirations.
Much like Indian hockey, the state’s wrestlers were repeatedly compared to Shripati Khanchnale, Ganpat Andalkar, Maruti Mane, Harishchandra Birajdar and Yuvraj Patil, but somewhere the fraternity realised they had lost their dominance to wrestlers from the north — Delhi and Haryana.

Narsingh would grow up in the Shiva-worshiping suburb with its decaying heritage caves built by priests and monks. In time, he came to put great store on the three Maharashtra Kesari titles he’d won, visit Vaishno Devi and line his rooms with a dozen garlanded frames of Neelkanth, never miss a Saturday half-hour puja and add a picture of Shivaji Maharaj to the long line of Hindu idols. The state government had been quick to counter offer him a job with the police, soon after Haryana made their move to poach following his 2010 CWG gold – he travels in a neat SUV today.

Indulgently, the then home minister had also laughed off the “cheating in exam paper” affair where appearing for the written test for the Deputy Superintendent’s post after probation, Narsingh was picked by the invigilator alongside a Maharashtra kabaddi player, for “chit-chatting and passing on a filled answer sheet.” Both were Arjuna Awardees and the matter didn’t cost him his posting at the Panvel SP office, even as he mumbled that he’d been busy preparing for the Olympics.

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Narsingh’s knack for getting into trouble goes back to childhood; his friend Sandeep Yadav – a Greco Roman Worlds medallist, and he were a bratty pair of 8 year olds, quite a handful for the akhada elders. There was a bakery adjoining the akhada in Jogeshwari that ferried freshly baked bread and pav to nearby grocery shops – the whole bunch wrapped and clamped to a bicycle. On his first day at the akhada, a new boy from UP was told the parked cycle belonged to them and could be used to reach the nearby hills where the young boys jogged at 5 am. When the newbie wrestler returned after the workout, the bakery staff was waiting. “Danda leke khade the, woh pit gaya. Yeh ladke bhaag gaye (they were standing with stick, he got beaten up, and these boys ran away),” recalls brother Vinod, older by 5 years, in between hysterical laughter. “He was always restless, always naughty, but was always sincere in training too. So people mostly know the serious, intense side of him.”

Narsingh has needed a stick on his backside once in a while, though. The stunted ambitions of Maharashtra wrestlers had rubbed off on him too circa 2009. “He used to be thrilled winning mitti dangals for Rs 21,000 – 51,000,”recalls mentor Ramadhar Yadav who roped him into sponsorship programs. “He’d fight injudiciously and I had to tell him that these are small returns since injuries were imminent, which would cost 2-3 lakhs.” Another almighty rebuke awaited him after finishing 5th at the World Championships in 2013 – incidentally a loss to world champ Jordan Burroughs. “I told him you’ve returned empty handed, is it worth investing time and money, or if another wrestler instead deserved an opportunity if he was going to botch the big events like Olympics and Worlds. It was harsh but he needed it,” Ramadhar Yadav recalls.

It also helped that he saw first-hand what global success meant: his best friend Sandeep Yadav had returned with a medal and was doing the rounds of felicitations, while India’s “best upper body” sat shoulders slumped – happy for his friend, but acutely aware that he wasn’t winning much. There would be nine Top 5 finishes at top global meets after that 2013 reprimand as a renewed focus set in.

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Any neutral on India’s wrestling circuit will tell you that Sushil Pehlwaan has more variety and nous, cunning and mat-craft than Narsingh. By now, any Indian who’s glanced at the sports pages over the scorching summer will also parrot the line that Sushil is untested in 74kg at the top levels of competition. Narsingh’s consistency is a relatively recent trope. He is a man who has bungled his first attempts often but made good his second chances.

Coach Jagmal first saw Narsingh trailing in a junior meet semifinal by 2 points with 10-12 seconds left. When Narsingh’s trailing, he looks miserable and lost. “But he effected the Dhaak technique with few seconds to go, and picked 3 sudden points. Jagmal told me he wanted him at SAI right away,” brother Vinod recalls. This last 30-second scramble would play out at Las Vegas too when he won Worlds bronze – he would typically realise that points from pinning weren’t going to come with time running out, so he had to go for the big fall.

A knee ligament in late 2009, though, proved to be a major setback. The 2010 CWG trials were due, and he hurried through a post-op rehab after initially dawdling over a surgery despite the advice of “Sachin’s doc Anant Joshi”. “That was the roughest time for the family and Narsingh was at his lowest. The surgery, then the loss,” Vinod recalls.

That’s when Narsingh would feel the whole force of what was believed to be the “north lobby” – often a perceived slight felt by the Maharashtra lot, but at times a very real politicking at work, that finishes careers. “We were told Narsingh is finished after he lost the final. When 10 people from Delhi-Haryana start saying something, it starts being considered true in India,” Vinod laughs. ‘Wrestling ka dab-dabdaba’ he calls it. But a second chance dangled: his opponent would flunk a dope test and Narsingh was called to Delhi, going on to win a CWG gold – a low notch title, which Sushil would incidentally win in 2014.

2012 Olympics wasn’t special, and it needed the 2013 Worlds where he lost narrowly, for the wrestler to take stock. Las Vegas 2015 would’ve wound up much the same – a Top 5 but no podium, except that Narsingh would be on the prowl to take, not his second – but fourth chance after prior failed attempts to execute the Dhaak with 30 seconds to go. You can fault him for always leaving it to the end, but Narsingh has inevitably come through in these come-from-behind scenarios more often than not.

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The leg lace and baarandaaz – variants of which Burroughs is said to have mastered this time, the leg hold patt, bagal dhup, dhobi pachhad and the explosive counters are all in his repertoire, but the gripping hand stop – with his ram-like strength emanating from that Hercules musculature is the wrestler’s real strength. Think dasti-kheench and the hand dodge. Raw strength in the hand, but a softie heart to the core.

Narsingh Yadav likes humming Kishore Kumar songs when training. Quiz him on them and he’ll rattle off names in the most non-lyrical drone. Suddenly though, he jolts himself into rare animation and pipes up about the mid-90s rage – that movie ‘Criminal’. A desi Hercules – with a V-taper upper body that bulldozes fellow wrestling bodies wearing the vacant expression that grapplers are known for – shyly admitting that he loves the nasal riff of Tum Mile Dil Khile.

What next?

Yes, there is Aamir Khan’s Ghajini, one of Narsingh’s favourite movies. Shortish man who waist upwards managed to look like Son of Zeus? “Not the body building!” he corrects you. “Lekin kaise paagal hone ke baad bhi (after he gets angry) wo apne pyaar ke liye villains se fight karta hai.” All this mush and romance told at a time when the whole nation was bursting its lungs out demanding to know if Sushil Kumar should be given a trial.

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Vinod is happy his kid brother’s off to the Olympics again but an astute grappler himself – though he grapples only with paperwork in his railway job now – he doesn’t miss an opportunity to drill into Narsingh that there could be a medal-sized hole in his game-plan.

“I always tell him that he cannot continue to start defensive in any bout for longer than first 15-20 seconds to gauge his opponent. The longer he delays his attacks, the tougher it’ll be for him,” he warns. Life’s not Euros 2016 or Dhoni of yore, he jokes, when last minute strikes will inevitably show up and finish the job, though Narsingh’s made a habit of upturning bouts in the dying seconds for wins. It’s common in Indian wrestling – lying in wait to pounce, but medal contenders don’t rely on that, as Sushil Kumar has proven. “There is much to learn from Sushil, even from this latest controversy – you shouldn’t leave things for the end,” Vinod says.

All who don’t speak aren’t dumb, Narsingh jokes about the age-old joke on strongmen. “Kai log bolte hai ki pehlwaanon ko dimaag nahi hota. Betuki baatein hai,” he laughs, adding that he’s shirked his defensive cloak and will fight the aggressive fight.

Tagged a ‘nice boy’ he’s kept Shiv Khera’s Jeet Aapki close at hand though he’ll need the brawn more than the books in a weight classification where Russians and the American are relentless.

Narsingh Yadav eschewed trials at the start of the Indian summer, but he’s soon to jump into the fire. The second chance at Olympics, beckons. It mattered not what the world thought, Narsingh Yadav knew he was headed there.