From competing for food to a gold medal: the stories behind India’s Asian Games winners

The country’s 85-medal haul included athletes who trained with limited money and borrowed equipment. Plus, the Mumbai performer turning everyday absurdities into comedy

In a country where cricket eclipses every other sport, the recently concluded Asian Games offered a much-needed reminder of India’s breadth of sporting talent. In this edition of the games, in Japan, India won 85 medals: 21 golds, 27 silver and 37 bronze medals. I admit I did not know many of the players competing, or even some of the sports they play before putting this piece together. Learning about the stories, I wonder why not.

Sports broadcaster Siddharth Pandey cited an old saying in the world of sport: “You cannot be what you cannot see.” For Pandey, one of the most heartening sights was families and communities rallying around the four female players from the north-eastern states. (The region has endured decades of conflict and is often overlooked in the national conversation.) “We simply cannot underestimate the impact these games and medals have on future generations taking up non-cricketing sport and wanting to excel in it,” he told me.

Behind India’s medal glory are dozens of athletes and families who have struggled financially, trained with limited facilities, and often without much institutional support.

So this week, I am sharing a sample of the many extraordinary stories from different parts of the country. These are only a fraction of the champions to emerge from the games, yet they provide a glimpse of the possibilities that can open up when a country sees and celebrates sporting talent across the spectrum.

Vithya Ramraj (gold in 4x400m): Ramraj was one of the breakout stars of the event with a three-medal haul. NDTV reported that her father had to borrow money to support Ramraj and her twin sister’s athletic careers. Alongside the team gold in 4x400m, she won a silver in the mixed 4x400m relay. She also broke Indian legend PT Usha’s long-held national record in 400m hurdles which won her a bronze medal.

Lalremsiami Hmarzote (member of the gold-winning women’s hockey team): The women’s hockey team forward once had to travel about 100 miles from her home to reach the only hockey academy in Mizoram. When she was growing up, her parents had no idea about what hockey and she played barefoot on dirt pitches. This month, playing her 200th international appearance, the 26-year-old struck gold. She scored the lone goal of the final against China, which Hockey India described as a “stunning reverse-stick strike”.

Aslam Inamdar (a member of the gold-winning men’s kabaddi team): Inamdar came to kabaddi, a south Asian contact sport combining elements of tag and wrestling, from humble beginnings – he was partly drawn to it because it was affordable and didn’t require expensive equipment. Coming from a village in Maharashtra’s Ahilyanagar, he worked odd jobs – from cleaning washrooms to working in the fields – so he could spend evenings training. “It still feels like a dream to me,” Inamdar told the Indian Express. “I often think about how someone who didn’t even have food at home now holds two internationa

Flydubai incident | Indian pilot Smit Machchar is being hailed as a hero for helping to save 174 passengers on the flydubai flight to Israel last week, after his co-pilot made an apparent effort to crash the plane. After being stabbed, Machchar opened the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to enter and overpower the attacker. He is recovering in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, where the plane eventually landed.

Art and design | Designer Vikram Goyal, celebrated for his signature repoussé brass work, brings his installation Wings and Tales to a Georgian townhouse in London’s Mayfair from 12 to 16 October. The exhibition includes furniture designs inspired by landscapes from the Indian epic Ramayana.

Shireen Gandhy, director of Mumbai’s pioneering Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, founded in 1963, recommends the work of artist Al-Qawi Nanavati. “[She] is a young artist from Bombay whose practice is rooted in printmaking and making her own paper. Her mother’s passing left her with a void,” says Gandhy. Nanavati created Letters to My Mother, an epistolary artwork crafted in, as Gandhy puts it, “a deeply personal language that is not known to anybody but her. Using fabrics and saris that belonged to her mother, she creates this tactile imagery for these letters. I find it very moving and like a

Nitesh Shetty’s sketches find absurdity in everyday life, turning familiar characters and social interactions into unexpected punchlines. This is what makes his work powerful: you’re laughing one moment and moved the next. There is a reel for every character imaginable: the person perpetually trapped in the limbo of land disputes, the man who is strangely knowledgeable about funerals, or the friend who has a unique dressing sense.