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The Forgotten Athlete

Inspired by the heartbreaking true story of Sita Sahu; India's young double Olympic bronze medalist.

By Holly JacksonPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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The Forgotten Athlete
Photo by Shraddha Agrawal on Unsplash

Her mother always told her she was stubborn. Since the day she rather ungraciously entered the world, she was doing things her own way. The entire family used to tell us all at every function, “She came when she wanted to come, there was no sticking to anyone else’s schedule. She got far too comfortable in there and it took the Doctor’s intervention to get her out three weeks after she was told! But at least we could choose an auspicious day.”

Born in late April, she was a Taurus. Not that it ever meant anything in particular to her, but as her family are devout Hindus, the collection of stars that somehow resembled a misshapen bull decided much of her life. There’s even a small wooden bull on the mantle as a reminder of her fate, it became something of a private joke between us. She fought it with every ounce of her being, but her date and time of birth, her personality, her husband, her wedding day and, despite her best intentions, her career were all decided by the stars as well. All I could do was watch, cheer from the sidelines, hold her in the dark. Even now, I stare up into the smoggy Chennai sky, looking for the stars that have brought us to where we are today, leading us both on a clearly predetermined path, forever trapped in this dusty, mosquito-infested city.

We met many moons ago, as children in the local school. She was fantastic, self-assured and confident, carrying herself with such certainty, even the teachers struggled to correct her. She wore her hair differently to all the other girls, all of whom turned up in their freshly pressed uniforms, identically plaited braids falling over both shoulders as they skipped into class. But not my Divya, she strutted through the crowds, streamlined, holding her brother’s hand-me-down satchel with her hair scrunched in a bundle on the top of her head and plonked herself down on the end of the bench every morning with such audacity, nobody told her any different.

I knew immediately I was in love but it took ten long, agonising years before I could make her mine. I’ve got the bull to thank for that. As a cancer myself, the crab, I took on the water sign and followed wherever the flow took me, and luckily for me, that was straight into the arms of Divya. Her mother, devout and as stubborn as her daughter, only wanted the best for her, the perfect astrological match. I tell her every day, it was this moment I knew the wonky bull in the sky had plans for us, because it was me that somehow fit her mother’s overly specific category. Though I would never have anticipated what the plan was.

Coming from a poor family myself, my prospects were limited; farming, vending, driving. I was unable to finish school before I joined my own father in the workforce, as part of a food packing factory and found myself betrothed before either of us had turned eighteen. Food was always my passion, as it had been for my father, and his father before him. From a line of fantastic cooks, it had always been a dream to have our own stall, selling our Chennai staples and feeding the masses. Fortune had not smiled on my family and passions had never been the source of our sustenance. Between them both, the bull and the crab had other plans for me.

Divya, on the other hand, was a force to be reckoned with. She could and would do anything, and I truly believed every word that escaped her beautifully sculpted lips. She was strong. And fast. She won every race, every bet, every wager, often bringing bundles of notes home for her parents after a good day at the local track. She had run since the day she was born, her feet itching to scamper across the dust soaked streets of Chennai, and despite the best intentions of everyone around her, she ran. Against every social rule and socially accepted path. She ran and ran, away from tradition and expectation, straight into my arms and, as a dutiful husband, I let her keep running; there’s no stopping a charging bull. She had a brain like no other, calculating distance and time, and it fueled every muscle in her body to absolute perfection. I watched in awe each and every day. Returning from work, I would take the less trodden path by the local track, seeing her barely gracing the earth beneath her bare feet with her presence as she slid over the surface like a skater over ice. The fastest woman in Chennai was my wife, and it wasn’t long before people began to notice.

Looking out onto the narrow cobbled street, I think of her, before it all. The years of training, the exertion, the body-breaking graft. She was afraid of nothing and carried it with pride. Nobody dared tell her any different. And the more she trained, the brighter those bull-shaped stars in her destiny shone. Many in our community shunned her, and through her, they shunned me. Chennai back then was rather less supportive of outgoing, career-driven, athletic, childless women, though admittingly, little has changed. It certainly didn't and doesn't care for a husband who allows his wife to behave in such ways. But, as I was happy to be pulled along by the current of the wave of fortune building in prowess in both of our lives, she rode that wave, her strength and passion deflecting cultural admonishment. Her name and success would show them all. And show them it did.

~

Following the constellations around the globe, the bull took her on a journey away from me. All I could do was watch, work and wait, alone in this unforgiving metropolitan city. A journey to Europe, a cooler mosquito-free, greener land of hope and opportunity, leaving me, her soft-centred, hard-shelled husband to wait for her on these Tamil shores. I saw her, leaving everyone in her wake as she ran and ran, the gold white and green of our nation plastered across her chest. For days, weeks, I watched her, peering into the screens of the local electronics stores. Crowds built, food was brought. My wife, my raging bull, had made it to the finals, her speed and determination unmatched.

I watched helplessly from across the globe as she stood, waiting on the line, crouched in anticipation of her final race. The one race that mattered. One that would bring glory not only for her, but for mother India herself. The gun blew, and as if she herself was charging against the matador, she ran. Faster than I’ve ever seen, as though propelled by an engine, she flew down the track. Her blurred figure on the screen at that moment was everything I knew, everything I was and as she crossed the finish line, I felt the world crash back down around me. The volume of the jeering crowd, the beeping horns of passing vehicles, the barking of street dogs all celebrating her victory. A young poor girl from Chennai, winning on the global stage. It was unheard of, and she was my wife.

As the camera panned to her sweat coated face, her smile took up most of the screen as she struggled to answer questions of the interviewer, gasping for breath through her flaring nostrils. The bull had taken her from me, but look what he had given. Her smile, her deep dark brown eyes, had brought together a nation and as they put the gold medal around her slender neck, the voices of all 1.3 billion citizens sang out in over a hundred different languages in support of her, and we all cried in unison long into the night.

~

But as quickly as the race had been run, normality, reality already began to set in. Salt from the tears of yesterday dried as life continued. Chennai grind resumed and my beautiful, wonderful, bull-headed wife was forgotten to all but one. She returned to my arms months after she’d gone, the smile never faltering as she tasted a life of luxury and success before being plunged back to the Chennai depravity she’d almost escaped. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, but all the while, nothing came from the Indian people, despite endless promises of prize money and government support. She had been presented with an unexchangeable allowance of free cement with which to build a new, luxury home for herself and her family, but having no other money or savings, all spent on years of training, the cement was largely a gesture of an impossible dream. Foundations of a house that would, could, never be built, a dream only semi-realised. Tantalisingly close and yet just out of reach.

She wept, carrying a burden I could only imagine. We drowned in the salt water rushing from her chestnut eyes for weeks, stagnating in a pool of bitter loss and disappointment. She’d earned the gold on the flag for mother India but had nothing in return, we were somehow left worse than we were before. The stubborn bull had given and taken all, leaving her in the protective but helpless claws of her crab. We continued to wait, but to no avail, and as the sharp pain in her heart began to dull, the stubborn angry side of my wife returned.

I remember in the months that passed, the early morning sunlight creeping through the cracks in the window panes, carving brilliant yellow onto the earth floor across our home. Every morning, before she woke, the beam would strike the gold of her medal suspended on the wall, filling the room with a luminous ochre echo, dancing across the walls, lighting up the entire room. It was a painfully beautiful reminder of what could have been and as I left to work each morning. Working longer and longer hours each day to survive, I watched her stare wistfully at the glorious golden light, which seemed to become weaker each day as the light of the bull in her eyes began to fade into a jaded dull brown. For weeks I watched her medal catch the light, until one morning, as I woke to make the morning tea, I was met by a deep and hollow darkness. The gold that had brought me through my waking moments had gone as quickly as it had come, I was met by only black as I fumbled through the room in search of the stove. Divya was already awake, sitting silently, shrouded in the dark. I knew immediately what she had done.

Knowing the struggle we faced, she took the only decision I could not and, removing the only light of her life from the house, she sold it for the one last thing that she knew could make her happy. Outside our house, chained to the door was a small, semi-rusted bicycle, attached to which was a cart that had seen better days. The contraption containing a stove and a small cupboard for storage, my wife had sold her dream to fulfill mine.

Now, with the wounds beginning to heal, the gold of her medal is sold in every golden fried pani puri we make together. The speed and stubbornness of my athlete wife is poured into every earthy potato filling, complimented completely by the fresh spicy water, the resolute wave of fate, to top every savoury snack we sell. The bull and the crab, earth and water together as one, watching the glorious golden Tamil sun set over these unrelenting Chennai shores.

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