KING OF THE RING
The story of a boy born in Punjab who is coerced into marriage at the age of nine, takes up odd job, and goes on to become a world famous wrestler
For writer Seema Sonik Alimchand, the journey of her book, Deedara aka Dara Singh, germinated while she was travelling to her hometown, Baba Bakala, near Amritsar. Raised in Mumbai, going to her ancestral home in Punjab is like a ritual for her, but in 2014, it seemed everyone was talking to her about a village where Dara Singh grew up. “Somehow, everyone kept talking about Dara Singh and kushti to me and I learnt that he lived not too far from my ancestral village,” says Seema.
Following the travel, she thought of a rough storyline and started researching on Dara Singh. To write a biography is a daunting task, especially on someone the writer hasn’t met ever, but Seema admits that her job was made quite easy with help from Dara’s wife, Surjit Dara Singh Randhawa. “She was a great support. Whenever I would call and ask her about something, she would ask me to come over and would tell me everything,” she recollects. Surjit passed away earlier this year and Seema has dedicated the book to her. The fact that Seema is the daughter of renowned music composer Sonik, of the musical duo, Sonik-Omi, also helped her to get in touch with a lot of Hindi film industry actors, especially Mumtaz and Menaka Irani (mother of Farah and Sajid Khan). “All my stars aligned, I was destined to write this book,” she adds with a smile. To get into her character’s head was the primary motive for the writer. “For a year, in my head I was Dara Singh, except I didn’t grow those extra muscles,” she laughs. Apart from knowing the person, Seema had to grow an interest in kushti (Indian wrestling). “The second half of the book required an extensive knowledge of the matches, his struggle, his strife, his diet. I also had to know the nuances of wrestling, for which I took help from his brother-in-law, Ratan Aulakh,” she says. Among many other things, she also found journalist and media personality, Pritish Nandy’s writings on Dara Singh to be of help. But the most difficult task was to remove bits that were unnecessary. “I didn’t want to take advantage by sensationalising,” she says, further adding, “My intention was to create an inspiring story. The story of a boy, who was born in Punjab, was coerced into getting married at the age of nine, then the labour and odd job in Singapore. From such tough beginnings to become a world famous wrestler and eventually a celebrity, is a story strong enough. I didn’t want to dilute it rumour.”
When she started writing the book, Seema realised that Dara Singh was a very polite human being and was loved by all and sundry. “Nobody could ever say anything bad about the man,” she says.
In one of her earlier writing phase, she metaphorically attempted in describing his deep-rooted sense of belonging to his soil, his village in Punjab. “I thought of him as a man who emitted the fragrance of the soil where he was born,” says Seema. Only later, she stumbled upon an interview, where Dara Singh as a wrestler had himself mentioned: “To work with mud, you have to be mud.” The analogy to soil reinstated Seema’s faith in her instinct and her subject alike.
DEEDARA AKA DARA SINGH! by Seema Sonik Alimchand Westland pp.263, `499