His is a tale of grime, guts and glory. A perfect blend of physical and mental strength, he overcame the odds to come out triumphant in his bid to make a name for himself in a world that isn’t always kind to people with physical disabilities.
But Rajinder Singh Rahelu was not one to live on the small mercies of the people around him. Crippled by polio before he was even two, the 36-year-old powerlifter from Mehsampur, a small village in Punjab, has come a long way.
“Life wasn’t the same a few years ago. I have been through a hell that I can’t describe in words. I had to toil hard to reach this position,” says the powerlifter, who won a bronze medal for India at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens.
“It has indeed been a long and arduous journey for me. Life hasn’t been kind. Apart from being disabled, I came from a poor family that struggled to make ends meet. My father played in a wedding band to feed our seven-member family of three sons and two daughters. For me, life was even tougher, as I used to go to school sitting on my brothers’ shoulders. At school, I used to crawl from class to class for different subjects. It wasn’t until Class X that I heard of something called a wheelchair, and I was lucky to get one soon afterwards through a donation,” recalls Rahelu, without any grievance or bitterness.
“From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to do something different but couldn’t figure out what. One day my friend Surinder Singh, a powerlifter himself who now lives in Sweden, asked me to try my hand at powerlifting, as he was convinced that a little training could win me a state medal. I agreed, and there was no looking back from then on,” says Rahelu, who has won 19 medals in national and international competitions, with the bronze at the 2004 Paralympics the most special.
“Touch wood, luck has been on my side ever since I took up this sport. Within a year of taking it up, I became national champion, and from the second year I started winning international competitions. But it was my Paralympic bronze in 2004 that changed my life forever. In 2006 I was given the Arjuna Award, and now the central government has also devised a policy to recognise para sports. So things are moving in the right direction,” says Rajinder, who won a gold medal at the 2009 International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Championship in Bengaluru.
The Punjab powerlifter, whose event is on the 12th of this month, says winning a medal at the Commonwealth Games is at the top of his list of priorities. “When I started the sport some 12 years ago, I never imagined that I would represent India on such a big stage, and that too in our own country. So the occasion is big, and I want to perform in front of my home crowd,” says Rajinder, who trains for five and a half hours a day, six days a week.
Ask Rajinder about his well-built upper body, and the soft-spoken lifter says it is all down to hard work. “I could never have the right kind of diet a powerlifter needs because of my financial situation. Maybe it’s because I used to travel 25km to neighbouring Phagwara at least twice a week for training on a hand-powered tricycle,” he says.
Courtesy: Village News
By Rakesh Jha
Indian Sports News
