Girl with no money to buy shoes plants feet in the ring
When Mandeep Sandhu first decided she wanted to box, she was just seven years old and her parents didn’t have enough money to buy her even a pair of shoes.
Then, as if in a fairy tale, it all fell into place: the village panchayat chipped in, a local academy run by two NRI brothers took her in, even Mary Kom made an appearance.
On Saturday — eight years after that first, small step in Punjab’s Chakar village — Mandeep was crowned the world junior champion in the 52-kg category at the AIBA Women’s World Junior Boxing Championship in Taipei.
“People have been coming to our house since morning, telling us it’s a world medal,” her mother Daljeet Kaur said.
Mandeep’s father Jagdev Singh said he would never forget the day his daughter told him she wanted to box. “At the time, we owned one acre of land and a buffalo and earned about Rs 20,000 a year. She got her first pair of shoes from the academy where she trained,” he said.
Kaur picked up the story. “She insisted that she wanted to box. When she won her first national medal, the village panchayat gave her Rs 1,100, which was like a lottery for us. Her brother Jagwinder also took up boxing and for their diet, we stopped selling milk from our buffalo to the village,” said Kaur.
Both agreed that Mandeep’s life turned at the Sher-E-Punjab Boxing Academy, run by NRI brothers Ajmer Singh and the late Baldev Singh, where she trained under coach Balwant Singh Sandhu.
“Sometimes, the brothers would give us Rs 10,000 for her expenses; we got nothing from the state government,” said Mandeep’s father.
The transformation was swift. Mandeep claimed her first national title in the sub-junior category at the 2011 Junior Nationals and defended the crown the next year. A ban on the Indian Boxing Federation by the world body following an internal tussle meant the youngster had to wait till January this year to claim her first international medal – a gold in the 50 kg category in the Nations Cup in Serbia.
“Once she attended the national camp, her confidence grew a lot. She would tell us about her meetings with boxers like Mary Kom or Sarita Devi,” coach Sandhu said.
Looking back at the early days, Sandhu said, “We started the academy over a decade ago, and Mandeep would watch other trainees from a distance. Then one day, she came with her parents and said she wanted to join. She was always eager to train and would sometimes train for extra hours in the morning before attending school. Once she attended the national camp, her confidence grew a lot.”
On Saturday though, hours after Mandeep beat Ireland’s Niamh Earley 3-0 to claim glory, Jagdev Singh confessed that he had another reason to be happy. “Perhaps, she will get new shoes now,” he said.
