Mom prepares Neeraj’s favourite ‘desi ghee ka choorma’ for his welcome
PANIPAT : ‘Gaad diya Papa lath’ were Neeraj Chopra’s first words in chaste Haryanvi, uttered over phone to his father Satish Kumar, after winning India’s first ever individual Olympics gold medal in an athletics event on Saturday in Tokyo. ‘Gaad diya lath’, roughly translates into a feat that is hard to undo and it perhaps echoed the sentiment of over a billion Indians after Chopra’s epoch-making moment in Indian sports.
“I greeted him and told him that he has done a great job for the country and how people are celebrating his win in India when I spoke to him with the help of some media persons”, his father Satish said on Sunday.
Distribution of sweets, dancing and playing of ‘dhol’ (a percussion instrument), amid long queues of vehicles outside his residence in Khandra village in Haryana’s Panipat district, have created a celebratory atmosphere similar to a grand marriage ceremony in which the entire village is participating.
The family members are busy in attending guests, especially the media persons, who made a beeline soon after he won the gold in javelin throw with his 87.58m throw in the Olympics event final on Saturday evening.
“Desi ghee ka choorma” (a local delicacy prepared in clarified butter) will be ready for Neeraj, when he returns, said his mother Saroj Bala.
“Choorma is Neeraj’s favourite, whenever he comes home after a long break, he asks me to prepare choorma, and this time I will again welcome him with choorma as he will be returning with a gold medal,” she added.
“Most of the time he remains away from home and comes to the village only once or twice in a year. He does not attend even marriages or other important functions in the village,” she said, referring to Chopra’s training schedule mostly keeping him away from home.
Saroj added that Neeraj was a very simple and polite man but was very strict about his health and fitness. According to the family members, Neeraj worked a lot on his fitness since his childhood. They said he weighed 90kg at the age of 11, when his uncle took him to a gym to lose weight and fat.
“In the gym, he met a javelin thrower Jaiveer from Bhinjhol village who asked him to choose Javelin throw as his sport,” said Neeraj’s uncle Bhim Chopra.
Bhim said Neeraj could not speak to the family after his win but spoke to his father on Sunday morning. “Neeraj spoke to me only for a few seconds,” said Bhim, adding a grand reception is planned for him.