Meet the medal winning Phogat sisters

In a nation starved of sporting glory, it is rare that one family should produce as many as six champions, three of whom have won gold medals on the global stage. And that all these champions should be women and play a sport, wrestling, that is anything but feminine. And that this should be in Haryana, the Indian state that is almost legendary for the poor status of its women – it has the lowest sex ratio among states and an abysmal female literacy rate of 60.02%. The success story of the Phogat sisters of Balali, an obscure little village in Bhiwani district, is rare indeed.

It is also the tale of one man's determination – Mahavir Singh, their father and coach who's pushed the girls very hard to turn them into world beaters.

Lying on a wooden charpai, playing cards and gossiping loudly with men from the village as they pass around a tall brass hookah, Mahavir is quite the patriarch. Laconic, his ample girth gives a hint of the once-promising wrestler who had trained at Delhi's famed Chandgi Ram akhara. "Father was very strict. We had to be on the ground at 4 in the morning. If we got even a few minutes late, he would punish us severely. Training was from 4 to 7 in the mornings and again in the evenings, after we got back from school or college," says Babita Kumari, just back from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games (CWG), where she won gold in the 55-kg category. "We used to hate it initially, but our attitude changed after we began winning. Now when one sister does well, all of us are inspired."
Mahavir has also built a gymnasium and bought high-tech gym equipment that the girls need to train on. A state-of-the-art wrestling mat lines one half the large hall, lent to the girls by a local college. "They had given it after Geeta won the gold medal in Delhi, and they could ask us to give it back at any time. Wrestling mats are expensive and I have written several times to the state government to provide me with one, but nothing has happened,"says Mahavir, the bitterness evident in his voice.

There's gender bias in the state government, feels Mahavir. "Or how is it that Vijendra Singh and Jitender Kumar are given DSP-level jobs in Haryana Police, while Geeta, the first woman wrestler to make it to the Olympics, gets only an inspector's post and Babita, sub-inspector?

This village has produced three CWG medal winners, but the government has not bothered to build a stadium here under its sports scheme, he complains. Perhaps, he conjectures, his village has been sidelined because Balali is a stronghold of the opposition INLD. A green flag with spectacles, the party's election symbol, flutters above the Phogats' sprawling two-storey mansion and Mahavir's wife, Daya Kaur has been three-time sarpanch of the village.

Whatever the politics, it's clear that Mahavir has brought about a minor revolution in gender equations in this part of the state. "He always wanted chhoris. I was the one who wanted a son," says Daya. The couple has five children, four girls and one, the last born, son, and Mahavir is training all of them. While Geeta and Babita have already made it big, Ritu is an upcoming star. Sangita and Modu, their only brother, are still training under their father's hawk eye. Vinesh, the family's other CWG gold medal winner, is a cousin, the daughter of Mahavir's youger brother Rajpal who died many years ago. Ironically, it is the girls of the family who have done well, not the boys. Three boys from Mahavir's close-knit, extended family had joined his training sessions – Anoop, his wife's nephew, Harnam, Vinesh's brother, and Rahul, his younger brother Sajjan's son. "But they couldn't take the strict regimen and rebelled, or had to drop out because of injuries," says Sajjan.

It isn't just his own family, but several girls from Balali and nearby villages who have also turned to Mahavir for training, especially in the months following Geeta and Babita's triumph. Monica Sangwan, a close friend of Babita, was one such, but dropped out to pursue her studies. "The training," says Monica, "will come handy when I sit for the combined defence services exams."

Is there is a wave of female emancipation blowing through this tiny village with no primary health centre and only one senior-level government school, in a state notorious for its child marriages? It's hard to say, but marriage is a distant priority for Monica, now 22 years old. "There's no pressure even from my family," she says. Even Daya Kaur, who herself studied only till class five, says she is in no hurry to marry off Geeta or Babita. "They are now concentrating on winning a medal at the upcoming Incheon Asian Games, and the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Then we'll see. Senior women wrestlers Gita Jhakhar and Nirmala Devi are not married, so it's no big deal," she says. It also helps that the girls' success has brought along monetary benefits – Geeta and Babita were both awarded cars after their CWG Delhi triumph, and after Glasgow, the Haryana government has announced a cash prize of Rs1 crore each.

"There was pressure on us before Geeta won the CWG gold. Village elders and even my grandmother used to say that no family will want their daughters-in-law to play such a sport. But now, we're heroes," says Vinesh. On her neck gleams a golden locket with the six-twined Olympic circles and the Ashoka Chakra, the national symbol, that she has designed herself. "It helps inspire me," she smiles.