By Mirza Mosaraf Hossain, TwoCircles.net
It is a well-known fact in India that compared to cricketers, sportspersons belonging to every other discipline have to struggle to make their name and earn a livelihood. The situation gets worse with athletes, and more so when they are physically handicapped. But as we showed last week, even among such struggles, there are enough shining lights like Bodruddoja Saikh. And among the many students that he has trained, Samima Khatun would surely rank among the top: with more than 15 medals in National Paralympic games in the past four years including four this year, Khatun should have been hailed as a role model for millions of physically handicapped citizens of this country. Instead, despite all the laurels that she has brought to West Bengal, she is still struggling to ensure that she and her family’s future is slightly better than it is now.
In fact, the news of her amazing achievements barely made it to national media and except for a small news item in The Telegraph, Khatun’s name did not even make it to the news portals.
Khatun, who is 16, won four medals at the National Championships held in Udaipur this year. Samima was among the three participants to the said Championship who participated from Bengal who won two gold, one silver, and one bronze. The other two are Reshmita Maal from Gobindapur village, a graduation first-year student in a nearby college situated in Nalhati, and Saina Khatun, an eighth-grade student of Koitha village. Reshmita secured two silvers and one bronze and Saina one bronze.
Samima hails from Basanta village of Nalhati block of the Birbhum district and is the daughter of Maijuddin Mondol, who works as a daily wage labourer and earns about Rs 200 per day. Samima completed her Matriculation from a nearby Madrasa, Nalhati High Madrasa School and is currently enrolled in the eleventh-grade (Science) for her Higher Secondary from Nalhati High School for Girls.
According to her parents, she is a patient of Genu Varum, or bandy-leg, an irredeemable deformity in the legs, mostly from the knees to the ankles which she got at the time of her birth. “Even if it is remediable, we are unable to spend the money needed for the operation. It is very hard for me to run a family of six members with an income of Rs 200 rupees per day and we can only dream of spending so much money for her treatment”, her father said.
After securing her position in the State-level Swimming Championship in 2013 held in Kolkata’s Kumartuli, Samima set out her journey into the National level championships under the guidance of Bodruddoja Saikh. Since then, she has succeeded to retain her position in the National Championships for the last four years held in four different cities of India. In 2014, she won two gold, two silver that was held in Indore, Madhya Pradesh; two gold, two silver, and one bronze in Belgaon, Karnataka for 2015 and two silver and two gold for 2016 in Rajasthan’s Jaipur.
In her early days, she used to practice swimming in her village pond. “When I was in my eighth standard, one day I was swimming in the nearby pond of my village. There my present Coach (Saikh) saw me and asked me whether I would like to swim under his guidance as a part of the competition. After that, whatever I have achieved now only for his insistence and influences,” she said. She started practising swimming in a lonely pond near Nalhati, quite far away from her village.
Bodruddoja Saikh spoke to TwoCircles.net about the tribulations that they faced at the start. “It was very tough for me to train her in the village pond as many adults would stand with their mobiles to capture her photos. Even locals would rebuff me for doing these sorts of things with a Muslim girl.” He added, “But when Samima won some competitions and news about it came out in papers, people left rebuking me. Since then, I started taking my students to a pond quite far from the villages near Nalhati to train them.”
When she was asked whether there was any problem with her parents to allow her swimming, she said, “We are very poor. So my parents allowed me to do what I am doing so that I can help them financially in order to get rid of poverty.”
But the bitter truth is that even after bringing laurels to West Bengal at the national level competitions, the Bengal government did not pay any attention to the girl or to her family. Though local administration did facilitate the winners this year after their return, no financial help was assured to them and the students are way too poor to afford training in the reputed clubs. Though other states have sanctioned some money for the winners at the national level, Bengal government is yet to think over that. Saikh lamented, “The Haryana sanctioned Rs 3 lakh for gold winners, Rs 2 lakh for silver winners and Rs 1 lakh for bronze winners. Recently, even the Bihar government implemented the same. But our government has done nothing like this. If the government does so, then lakhs of physically deformed children may get enthusiasm to devote themselves to these sorts of sports.”
Samima’s father also urged the same. “If benevolent persons come forward to help my daughter to achieve her ultimate successes, then we would be grateful to all of them,” he added.
PS: If TwoCircles.net readers would like to help Samima and her family, the bank details of the family are as follows:
Name: SAMIMA KHATUN
A/C NO— 35188578498 (STATE BANK OF INDIA)
NALHATI BRANCH, BIRBHUM.
IFSC CODE—SBIN0008540.