Children of another dangal

The need of the hour is better training facilities and talent scouts in villages with strong sports traditions

The other day at the gym, one of the televisions had been turned to a channel showing the Bollywood movie Dangal. For those who haven’t seen it, the movie is loosely based on the lives of Mahavir Singh Phogat, an amateur wrestler from Haryana, and his two daughters Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari, whom he trained to become India’s first world-class female wrestlers. While the story and actors were delightful, I couldn’t help being struck by the irony of two girls from rural Haryana becoming successful wrestlers and empowered women — only because their patriarchal father wanted to realise his