[Reader-list] Kill the Body The Head Will Fall

[pankaj kumar]

�The eccentricities of the human body, and the human spirit, are                encapsulated in boxing.� 

 

Many of the Women boxers whom I have been following in the past few months are busy with their exams. Their inaccessibility helped me take a review of the footage that I have shot, watch Million Dollar Baby and of course reading more about boxing. Women Boxing.     

 

Kill the Body The Head Will Fall by Rene Denfield (an ex boxer) is a brilliant book sent to me by SARAI. The book has been insightful not only understanding the sport but also gaining a woman perspective from within boxing. Although rooted in the aura ascribed by the West to the sport, the book retains the sociological implications of boxing on women. The book talks about Women�s aggression, anger and boxing. The following pointers will help me formulate a questionnaire vis a vis the effect of the boxing on their personal lives, bodies and sense of self.   

 

 

   �It is different outside it. When my face has been marked and bruised, neighbors and acquaintances grow uncomfortable silent, radiating sympathy. They think I�m a victim of domestic battery. If it were a man with bruises, they might think that he had gotten in a drunken bar fight, or had been smashed with a loose elbow during a basketball game. With a woman, they think victim, not aggressor.�                  

�         �My face was tender, and later it bruised slightly. I lay on the couch that evening, seraphic with exhaustion, nearly bursting with pride.��                                                        

   �For many women, anger is a subject fraught with fears, guilt, and embarrassment. Men get angry, too, and feel guilty for it. But women confront a frustrating mixture of pop psychology and denial that men usually don�t.�                                      
   �The eccentricities of the human body, and the human spirit, are encapsulated in boxing. The opponent, you face right now in this ring, is never the same as he was the month or day � or even the moment � before.�                                                                       
   �How women feel about their bodies, and how society feels about women using them in competition, is not just a matter of fashion. That women are entering sports long defined as male � rough, full-bore, competitive contact sports � has consequences far removed from athletics.�                                                          
 When I meet the women boxers next I would like to know if they are the same people within and outside the ring. Do they assume different personalities in different public spaces?  How similar or different is their body language? For Jharana (18) and Richa (22), the sport is an extension of their personality. Aksir (16), Joythi (21) and Kirti (18) seem assume a different personality. 
 

Also, I started out on the assumption that the women boxers use the sport to vent out their anger or there is an innate drive towards aggression that makes the sport attractive to them. But at this juncture, there is some serious unlearning. Boxing always does not necessities anger or aggression. �Richa insists that boxing is not about anger. It is a technique, which could be learnt with right and consistent training. You don�t want to kill the opponent physically or their sense of self but rather overcome their schemes and strategies. It is a high when you win over their plus point and understand their weaknesses.  Physical bruises are a part of the game. �The first time when I got hurt in the ring, I was shooting with pain. But after sometime, you are numb. You lose awareness of your pain, you are just fighting. Also, when I went back home, my parents were shocked. But I was bursting with pride, very happy that I won.�  

Boxing is a skill and a personal drive, with risks that accompanies any sport, accompanied by a societal flaw which makes boxing seem to be natural trait with women an aberration. So question is reduced to what the writer echoes, �given the same sports and the same training as men, would women show themselves to be similar people?� or �It is a game of skill on strength which can be made genderless?� I hope that my curiosity throws light on the innate aggression embedded in women, which is systemically toned by society. 

Finally, how do we set parameters to ascertain that a women boxer is good at the sport. At a time, when there is a lack of competition in this sport because of marginalisation, how do we understand excellence? Or is it necessary to begin with to ask such a question but rather focus on the sociological and psychological implication of the sport on the lives of the women boxers.  






PANKAJ RISHI KUMAR;  B/103, Gokul Tower, Thakur Complex, Kandivli (E), MUMBAI 400 101                                                       PH: 91-22-2854 7585 

 




		
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