Chhatrasal finds reason to cheer after dark days

NEW DELHI: A mobile phone footage from Chhatrasal stadium sends shockwaves through the country. Sushil Kumar, the wrestling centre’s most illustrious pupil and arguably India’s greatest Olympian, is seen in a group of people assaulting a junior wrestler, Sagar Dhankad, who dies soon after. In a few days, Kumar is arrested.

For the modern-day cradle of Indian wrestling, the incident is a dark chapter in what is otherwise a glorious journey. Speculations swirl whether Chhatrasal will ever be the same again. A steady dribble of top players leaving Chhatrasal had already dented its reputation. Kumar’s arrest added another blow.

It took a little over three months and an Olympic silver medal by another Chhatrasal ward to show that the institution was far from gone. When Ravi Dahiya rose to the Tokyo Olympics podium with a silver medal in the 57kg, those watching it on TV at the facility in west Delhi must have felt a sense of pride and relief. They had found a new hero. Dahiya is the centre’s third Olympic medallist (Yogeshwar Dutt had won bronze in London) and that is an incredible feat.

But the list does not end here. Deepak Punia, who lost his 86kg bronze medal match, also started from this academy, as has Bajrang Punia – a top medal contender in 65kg. Neither of them train there any more.

For boys from Delhi, as well as the villages and towns that surround the capital who aspire to be wrestlers, Chhatrasal Stadium is the ultimate destination. They live here in cramped quarters packed with fellow wrestlers, living out of duffel bags, sleeping on mattresses lined up on the floor, and eagerly awaiting their fathers bringing them milk, fruits and ghee every morning to supplement their diets— that’s the quintessential Chhatrasal life. It’s the way Kumar came up, as did Dahiya.