[Reader-list] " Ponytails - Ringtones - Punches " women boxers in India. 2nd posting

[pankaj r kumar]

Currently, the academic discourse on women boxing primarily emerges from the West. It is futile to implement their discourse on Women Boxing to the Indian Scenario as women boxers in India are exposed to a different reality on sociological, biological and cultural level. It has also been very difficult for the women boxers to theorize their mundane lives and articulate as to how boxing is shaping their lived reality. The implications have to be read subversively as they talk about their life and everyday routine. 

                             I
Taking cognizance of the above point, there has been an urgency to narrow down the women boxers whose lives I intend to document. There are no set parameters of class, age or their experience as boxers in my process of selecting them but rather the spontaneity and enthusiasm with which they have allowed me to have access to their fears, anxieties, dreams and desires.     

Kirti - A Maharashtrian, XIIth standard student,based in Pune. She comes from a family of sports people. Her father - a constable with the Pune police (crime branch) - has been a wrestler, and her younger brother is a boxer himself on the international level. For Kirti, getting into boxing is to follow a family legacy."I want to box like my brother," she says. Listening to her, her brother smiles and says, "But she does not practice enough." Kirti- "But I don't get enough time to practice, I have college to attend and exams to pass...he boxes all day, he is in a Military school. I can't go there." I asked her where does she intend to reach two years from now. There was a deafening silence and a blank look as if she would rather not continue with sports if given a choice.  

Aksir based in Delhi, a Xth standard student, whose father is in the Army. Apart from boxing regularly she also practices Ballet, Kathak, Indian Classical singing, and takes guitar lessons. In my research I hope that she will represent the 'class', which one hardly associates with this sport in India. It will be interesting to document and inquire how she moulds her mind and body as she moves from one activity to another. Her Kathak teacher praises her and finds similarities between boxing and Kathak. "It is all about improvisation," she says. Her Russian Ballet teacher on the other hand loathes the fact that she boxes.

Jyoti - A graduate, she hails from an economically poor family of three sisters and a brother. Her father is a driver with Mother Dairy. Jyoti was a national level swimmer, who took up boxing at the insistence of her coach. She was in the first Indian National team. However, she soon fell out with her coach and since then has been sidelined by the national selectors. At the National boxing Champions, Kerala (2005), she lost in the quarterfinals. This could be the end of her boxing career. She says her father was very upset because for the first time she returned home without a medal. She is one character who is constantly reflecting on where the sport has gone wrong in the past five years. She sees sports as a reliable means to get a better job and increase her prospects in the government job market. 

Jharna:Class XII student from small town Akola, a junior national tennis champion and an avid trekker--a tomboy, she only wears T-shirt and Jeans, has never worn a salwar in her life. She is also the only girl in Akola who rides a motorcycle. She thinks that people (female as well as male) go into boxing for different reasons -- to get rid of aggression, to learn techniques of self-defence, to get physically strong, or because they relish the sportive challenge -- but they also share the belief that it is intellectually challenging, and enhances self-confidence, strength of character, and courage. She claims that facing danger and overcoming fear gives her an unbelievable buzz -- she enjoys the physicality of fighting, the excitement, the roughness and the risk. She took up boxing in September '2004. She quit tennis as she realised that there was no challenge left for her in that sport.Boxing to her was the next obvious choice. More so because nobody, a woman, in Akola had dared to take this sport. "I love the extremes. I want to subject my body to the extremes". She won a Gold at the Maharashtra level but lost in the second round at the Nationals. "Regardless of the result, win or lose, when I come out of the ring, I feel on top of the world" The over-riding sensation is one of empowerment, perceived to be inscribed both in the individual physical body and in the inner self. For Jharna boxing is a stepping-stone to get into the Air Force. She wants to prove to her dad that he should not regret not having a son.		

Richa Hushing--- I asked Richa Hushing (A student at Film and Television Institute, Pune, ex boxer): What should the film be about and as a boxer what do you want to see of yourself and others like you? Richa Hushing: "I want you to show that half an hour before the match, it is your mental make up which decides your victory or defeat... The film should highlight my relationship with my opponent off and on the ring. I am not there to kill her but to confront her as an equal. It is a mental battle. You must highlight the fact that only girls from lower and upper class get into boxing because they are already at the extremes of the society. They have nothing to lose. In contrast, to the middle class, the idea of fighting scares them. It is the complacency of the middle class and the tragic truth of opportunities wasted by them to create a niche for themselves." middle-class women were struggling to get into the "respectable" world of organised sports, but found themselves seriously constrained by dominant medical ideologies about the innate physical limitations of females and their unsuitability to take part in vigorous exercise.

                                    II
The motivation behind the women boxers taking up this sport is varied. The implications of asking the same set of questions to find a common thread among these women is regressive resulting in convenient stereotyping. At this juncture, a crucial and fundamental question arises - what is this film about, since instinctively I feel that looking or using footage of these boxers is rather superficial and irrelevant to the central core of the film.
       After talking and observing some boxers at length, I have realised  that it would be interesting to study how the women boxers use their bodies in various public spaces. What is the understanding of the role their 'physical' body plays in their life and sport? Also, how does boxing become a culturally sanctioned space, which allows the women boxers to articulate themselves? Is self-determination the underlying motivation behind the women boxers, or are a few of them 'forced' to take up this sport? With Kirti, this aspect and its implications are overwhelming. We are actually getting insights as to how: "if in the past "traditions" trapped a women's existence, now, "modernity" with its demands can be equally entrapping!"
    Are women boxers taking up this sport as a sign of rejecting their femininity? Also, what are the various ways in which the women boxers retain their femininity? Is there a need to over emphasise their heterosexuality in the ring? 
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