ATLAS SPINS HIS WHEELS

BY NERGISH SUNAVALA

WHEN RAJINDER Singh Rahelu does a bench press, his upper torso ripples. Your eyes follow the undulating muscles down to a slender waist and then to a pair of toothpick limbs dangling on either side of the bench. That’s when you notice the wheelchair nearby.

The thirty-six-year-old powerlifter got polio before he was two. Growing up in Mehsampur — a tiny village in Punjab — Rajinder would go to school on the shoulders of his siblings and then crawl from class to class. He had no idea that wheelchairs even existed until he started travelling for powerlifting championships. Today, he gives other disabled athletes wheelchairs when they go for competitions — he still remembers how long a railway platform can seem when you are dragging yourself on the ground.

Rajinder is proud of his success yet he retains the earthy charm of a village boy. He remembers vividly the days his family struggled to make ends meet — his late father played in a wedding band to feed the seven-member family (three sons and two daughters). After finishing school Rajinder was convinced he would do something different — he just had to figure out what. Then, a friend who was a powerlifting champion convinced him that with a little training he could get a state medal. Soon Rajinder graduated to winning medals at national and then international championships, becoming one of two Indians to win a medal at the Paralympics. Of all his 19 medals in national and international tournaments, the bronze at the 2004 Paralympics remains special. He won that despite high fever a day before the competition.

This year, Rajinder will represent India in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which has integrated para-sports with events for able-bodied athletes. A medal won in a para-sport will count in a country’s final medal tally.

Last year, Rajinder won a gold medal at the 2009 International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Championship in Bengaluru. Rajinder lifted 182.5 kilos — more than two and a half times his body weight. But instead of being ecstatic he sobbed in anguish for 20 minutes because he had fallen short of his training record of 195 kilos by 12.5 kilos. “It’s not the medal, it’s the performance,” he explains.

Photo: TARUN SEHRAWAT

Rajinder's training has been a mix of a rigorous exercise and rustic deprivation. His training for the Commonwealth Games is funded by the government and consists of a five-and-a-half-hour exercise schedule six days a week that is divided into a three-and-a-half-hour session of heavy exercises and weight lifting in the morning, and then yoga, aerobics, meditation and free-hand exercises for two hours in the evening. Today, Rajinder's high protein diet is funded by the government but up until four years ago he was eating regular home food because his family couldn’t afford a powerlifter’s diet. “I have no idea how my upper body developed so well without the right food,” he says.

Maybe because Rajinder, keen to train under the well known local coach Captain Piara Singh, would travel 25 km to neighbouring Phagwara at least twice a week on a hand-powered tricycle. Rajinder agrees that his bulging triceps may be a result of all that arm pedalling.

Rajinder chooses to look back stoically on these challenges as experiences that made him stronger. But his memories of discrimination and prejudice are harder to erase. He remembers his first national championship in Madhya Pradesh, where he competed against both able and disabled athletes and beat them all by lifting 130 kilos. But an athlete who lifted only 120 kilos walked away with the gold. The organisers denied him the gold on a technicality — he hadn’t registered in the general category. When he asked for his medal in the disabled category, he was told that category had no medal, only a trophy. Another time he was told a few days before he was about to compete in the International Bench Press Championship that he wasn't eligible because of his disability. He later found out from the International Powerlifting Federation that there was no such rule.

Surprisingly, Rajinder isn’t bitter or angry about the discrimination he faced. Doctors have told him that they can help him walk on calipers but he doesn’t want to take time out of his training for the treatment. His disability is part of who he is. In the long run, the slights didn’t matter. He has won the national championship 11 times — five times in the general category. He has also won the ‘Strongest Man of India’ award, given to the best athlete in the nationals, four times and the Arjuna Award in 2006. Rajinder has beaten able-bodied athletes in national and international meets but he rarely gets the same recognition.

IN 2004, when he returned with the paralympics bronze, people knew very little about para-sports. Rajinder describes his meeting with the Prime Minister after winning the bronze medal. When introduced to the President of the Paralympic Committee of India, Rajinder says, the PM looked confused and asked, ‘What is that?’

Parvinder Singh, Rajinder’s friend and once an able-bodied powerlifter who now competes in the disabled category because of a spinal injury, says Rajinder pushes his body beyond normal limits. Vijay Muneshwar — polio victim, five time paralympian and Rajinder’s coach — is so convinced of his ability, he funded Rajinder’s training before the government started chipping in.

Despite his achievements, the ‘Strongest Man in India’ has remained grounded. When a boy from Punjab approached him for an autograph at Delhi airport, Rajinder said, “I am not important enough to give you an autograph.”

Rajinder’s dream is to beat ablebodied athletes in the International Bench Press Championship. Since the government does not recognise this version of the sport he will have to find his own sponsors. As Rajinder says, “Only then will I know who is stronger, able-bodied powerlifters or I.”

nergish@tehelka.com