The Race of My Life (4 page)

I still vividly remember the day when I had taken her for a walk after school finished. It seemed magical. We lost track of time and she reached home late. Her parents found out about us and were furious. She was thrashed and locked up in a room. She also stopped going to school.

Soon after, her parents got her married off. I was heartbroken.

The following eight or nine months that I spent in limbo were the worst times of my life. It was also a period that I am still deeply ashamed of. As was inevitable, I fell into bad company, and began to gamble. There was no elder or role model to give me advice or direction or to supervise my actions. As a result, my life went rapidly downhill.

My friends and I would indulge in all kind of nefarious activities. We would steal bags of sugar or rice from the goods trains that were standing at Shahdara railway station and sell them at cheaper rates at the local bazaar. But the thefts were soon discovered and reported to the police, who began to keep a close watch at the station. One day they caught us in the act, and though some of the boys were arrested, I ran so fast that I managed to escape the dragnet.

Fate, however, had other plans for me. In 1948, I was travelling by a local train from Shahdara to Delhi without a ticket, a jaunt I had successfully managed several times before. But as luck would have it, this time I was arrested and brought before a magistrate who stipulated that I either pay a jurmana of fifteen rupees or go to jail. I had not a penny, let alone fifteen rupees, and was thus sentenced to three months’ rigorous imprisonment. I was deeply humiliated when the constables handcuffed me and threw me in jail. It was only after a couple of days that I managed to send word to Isher. She secretly sold her gold earrings and paid the fine. I was released, after spending ten days in the company of thieves and dacoits. Often, while in jail, I would get so dejected that I seriously thought of becoming a feared dacoit after my stint behind bars.

Nothing had changed in the house in the ten days that I was in jail. Isher was working as hard as she always did, and the newly instituted rewards for her were regular beatings. I was still humiliated by my stint behind bars and would sit around the house moping. Then we heard the news that Makhan had been posted at Delhi’s Red Fort. When he came to visit us, I fell upon him in desperation, bombarding him with tales of our troubles, and about how harshly his wife’s family treated Isher. Although he was a hen-pecked husband, completely dominated by his wife, he did try to make an effort to ease the situation during the short time he stayed with us in Shahdara. But his military duties prevented him from being in the house all day, and the ill treatment never really stopped. One day, all my pent-up frustration and anger erupted at the sight of Isher being violently abused yet again. I went into Jeet’s room, picked up Makhan’s gun, which he had forgotten to take with him, brought it out and aimed it at Isher’s in-laws. I said menacingly, ‘
Khabardar, agar meri behen ko phir se haath lagaya to jaan se maar doonga!
(If you dare to touch my sister again, I will kill you all).’ They looked at me with fear, and I would like to believe that the beatings became less frequent after that incident.

While Makhan was in Delhi he managed to get me admitted in the local school, but it had been more than a year since I had looked at a book and I found it difficult to concentrate on my studies. Regretfully, I must admit, I could not renounce my bad habits and was back on the streets again, in the company of delinquents. When my brother discovered my truancy, he would beat me.

Despite the thrashings Makhan tried hard to find me a vocation, but before a suitable job could materialize, he was transferred to Jhansi and I was back to my bad old ways. Somehow, deep within me, I knew that I wanted to lead a better, more productive life. I yearned to join the army, but it was 1949 and there were thousands of unemployed refugees who had the same ambition. Hopeful young boys like me would throng the recruitment centres, but there were too many of us and too few vacancies to fill.

I was rejected two or three times. At my first attempt at the recruitment centre in Red Fort, I was one of almost five hundred lads who had queued up, waiting for our turn to come. Then, we were asked to stand in line in our shorts, where we were weighed. Thereafter, the medical officer asked me to run a hundred yards, after which I was asked to expand my chest and my chest measurements were taken. A cross was then marked on my chest and I was informed that I was not fit enough to be recruited. At that time my height was 5 feet 9 inches, and my weight 65 kilograms. Dejected but not defeated, I tried again but with the same outcome.

To occupy myself and earn some money, I began to work as an apprentice at a rubber factory, with a salary of fifteen rupees a month. I would hand my wages over to Jeet’s parents only to receive in return dry rotis and onions for my morning meal. The poor diet and miserable work conditions ultimately had an impact on my health and I was seriously ill for almost two months.

Makhan was now posted in Kashmir and I gave him an ultimatum that he must get me recruited into the army if he did not want me to give the family a bad name. In November 1952, with my brother’s recommendation, I was selected at the army’s recruitment camp held in Kashmir. I was overjoyed. The other new recruits and I were taken by military transport to Srinagar and then on to Pathankot. My final destination was the Electrical Mechanical Engineering core (EME) Centre at Secunderabad.

soon discovered how tough and disciplined life in the barracks was and the strict rules and regulations that dictated a new recruit’s daily routine. Time governed every minute of our waking hours, and besides our duties out of doors, we had to make our beds, wash our mugs and plates and store them, with all our other possessions, in a tin trunk under our beds. We would rise every morning at 5 a.m., down a mug of piping hot tea and then assemble at the parade ground for the roll call and physical training, where we had to go through a series of complicated exercises. After breakfast, we returned to the ground where we had daily drills on how to march smartly and in tandem with our fellow soldiers. The rest of the morning was spent performing several military duties, including practising shooting at the firing range. What we all dreaded most was ‘fatigue duty’, which meant the non-military duties we had to do every day like digging trenches, building roads, gardening, peeling potatoes, washing utensils in the mess, polishing senior officers’ shoes and other types of manual labour. If a jawan disobeyed orders or was unruly, he was made to do push-ups and front and back rolls. The harsher punishments were running around the grounds carrying a knapsack full of rocks on the back or the threat of being sent to the quarter-guard or army jail.

Our days were long and very tiring and we all looked forward to relaxing in the recreational room to play carom, read or just sit around and chat or listen to the radio. Each night, just before lights out, there was the final roll call for the day to check if all were present and accounted for.

Our salary then was thirty-nine rupees a month, of which it was compulsory to send ten rupees home. The balance went towards paying the dhobi, tailor and canteen charges. What little was left over we spent watching movies.

The training was so rigorous and the regime so strict that often I would despair that I couldn’t cope and wanted to run away. Some lads from my group had done so because they couldn’t cope with the rigours. Whenever such thoughts came to my mind I would recall my early hardships, and think: army life may be tough, but it is better than the sufferings I had endured earlier. Then a fortunate incident changed the course of my life.

One Saturday morning, after roll call, there was an announcement that a six-mile race was to be held the next day, and the top ten, out of some five hundred recruits who participated, would be exempted from fatigue duty and would also be given an extra glass of milk every day. This was in January 1953.

That night, my Punjabi friends and I could talk of nothing else but the forthcoming race. Our other competitors would be the unit’s recruits from all over India and we had all unanimously decided that we could not let the Bengalis, Biharis or Tamilians defeat us—our izzat would be threatened if that happened. I barely slept that night—I was so excited, but at the same time, apprehensive.

When the day dawned, all of us recruits, wearing our canvas shoes and khaki vests and shorts, reported at the starting line. Filled with a sense of mission, I ran with great gusto and took the lead in the first two or three miles. When I would feel tired I would stop, rest for a while, and start running again when I saw that the other boys were catching up. Luck was on my side that day and I came sixth in the race. At roll call that night, my name was announced before a large gathering of almost three hundred recruits. Friends, and even strangers, wildly applauded and thumped me on my back, screaming, ‘Shahbash!’ I was overwhelmed with joy by the attention I received—this moment was the starting point of my career as an athlete.

Our instructor was a former runner called Havaldar Gurdev Singh, who had been with the army for about fifteen years. Although his task was to train new recruits, he was a good runner and continued to participate in races. This time he was there to ensure that the ten of us would run six miles each day, after which we would be given that promised glass of milk. For me this was a treat after all those years of deprivation. Gurdev was a taciturn, no-nonsense kind of man, whose tough exterior hid his softer, gentler side. He would run with us during our training period, prodding us with his danda (stick), shouting abuses: ‘
Haramzadon bhaago
! (run, you bastards!),’‘
gadho, hamari company first aani chahiye
! (our regiment must come first, you donkeys!),’ if we did not perform according to his expectations. He would use the same stick to hit the ground in anger or frustration if we were being careless, calling us ‘
dangar di aulad
’. But that was his way of motivating and encouraging us. I strongly believe that he was instrumental in motivating me to strive to become a world-class athlete. Even today when I think of his danda and volley of abuses, I respectfully bow my head in tribute to a great teacher.

Six weeks later, the Centre held a cross-country race. In this event, Gurdev came first and I second. Suddenly I became the cynosure of all eyes. I was twenty or twenty-one at that time, but looked much younger. A couple of weeks later, I was asked to take part in the Brigade Meet in which all the units stationed in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad were participating. I was very surprised when they asked me run in the 400-metre event, mainly because I did not know what 400 metres meant, as I had always run six miles. When I asked Gurdev, he said that I would have to run one round of the track that measured 400 metres.

Foolishly, I remarked, ‘What, only one chakkar (round)? I can run twenty chakkars!’

Gurdev patiently explained, ‘No, you will have to put all your stamina and speed in just one round, not twenty.’

At my first practice run, I took off my canvas shoes and stood there barefoot, in my shorts. Gurdev clapped his hands for me to start—I did, and clocked 63 seconds in my first try. I was eager to run four more rounds. After all, I was used to running six miles every day and considered this quarter mile of little consequence. For days I continued to practise and my time was further reduced to less than a minute.

On the day of the Meet, I noticed that some young men had the word ‘INDIA’ inscribed on their vests. They were being mobbed by senior officers and their children, and seemed to exude an aura of power and prestige. I could not understand why this was so and when I inquired I was told that they were those athletes who had represented India in international sporting events. That was my Eureka moment, when I made a solemn promise to myself that I would not rest until I, too, found a place in that hallowed world of Indian athletes who had the privilege of displaying our country’s name on their blazers and vests.