MC Mary Kom is a story as well as an inspiration

By Shamya Dasgupta

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” – Michael Jordan

MC Mary Kom’s story exemplifies Air Jordan’s thoughts on what goes into the making of a champion. “Because of our oriental looks, people from the Northeast are often mocked in other parts of India. We’re called Nepalis, or Chinkies, and people call out things like chingching chong-chong,” Mary writes in her recently published autobiography Unbreakable.

It’s a fairly candid book –even if Mary stops short of taking a really strong stance on some of the problems Indian women boxers have faced from the time it was a fledgling sport to now. For example, during the nonsensical politicsaroundtwo coaches – Anoop Kumar and Damodaran Chandralal – being appointed for the women’s team in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics, she condemns the situation, but more mildly than one might expect: “a new coach just before the Olympics would destabilise the team.”

She is self-absorbed –driven and obsessed. When talking about leaving her village for Imphal to become a boxer, she writes, “I wondered if I was being selfish, with my parents now having to do all the work (at home), even the share that I took care of. What would my siblings do?

Now my parents would have to handle them as well. But I also knew that I was making the right move.” She’s aware, at least in hindsight, of the demands she was making on her family – first her parents and then her husband and twin sons – and that shewas, maybe, unreasonable. And there is a tinge of regret. But a world champion cannot do the balancing act expected of every workingwoman: home and the world. Even on the birthing table, she writes, her thoughts didn’t entirely stray from boxing.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize,” Mary, a devout Christian, quotes from the Bible towards the end.

She was determined to not just win another medal, but to prove the naysayers wrong. “I declared vehemently that nobody could stop me from boxing,” she says, not once, but over and over. She knows a champion can’t quit .

Mary’s story is that classic story of winning against big odds. She doesn’t talk about inspiration much, but her story is exactly that – an inspiration.

Shamya Dasgupta is Senior Editor, Wisden India