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"It felt strange. Like in the camp for Bulgaria and Spain, there were all Phogats and I was the only Malik in between them. But I did not mind... It was Geeta didi who showed us the way in 2012" --

Sakshi Malik, India's first female wrestler to win an Olympic medal (bronze, Rio, 2016)

Geeta Phogat

Geeta Phogat and Babita Phogat

Mahavir Singh Phogat with daughters

Ritu Phogat, Mahaveer’s third daughter
Weight category 48kg
Gold in (senior) National Championship, 2015 and 2016; Gold in Commonwealth Championship, 2016; Jaipur’s pro- Wrestling team paid Rs.36 lakh for her <> Daink Bhaskar

Sangeeta Phogat, Mahaveer’s youngest daughter
Weight category. 53 kg;
Gold in (junior) National Championship, 2016; Delhi’s pro- Wrestling team paid Rs.5 lakh for her. <> Daink Bhaskar

Dushyant Phogat, Mahaveer’s son, in 2016, at age 13 <> Daink Bhaskar

Priyanka Phogat
Mahaveer’s niece
Gold in (senior) National Championship, 2015; Silver in Asian Wrestling Championship, 2016; member of Punjab’s pro- Wrestling team, 2015
Weight category: 53 kg. <> Daink Bhaskar

Mahavir Singh Phogat, a champion, a father, a coach

Sonam Joshi, Meet Mahavir Singh Phogat, The Fascinating Wrestler Who Inspired Aamir Khan's 'Dangal', This is how you break rules. 21/10/2016, Huffington Post

The story of the Phogat family is compelling for several reasons.

In training his daughters to become wresters, Mahavir was not only bringing about a women's wrestling revolution in what has been a traditionally male-dominated sport, but also doing it in a state known for its gender inequality, a low sex ratio of 879 and a female literacy rate of 65.94%, according to the 2011 Census.

Mahavir has trained six female international-level wrestlers -- Geeta, Babita, Ritu, Sangeeta, Vinesh and Priyanka -- who share numerous international medals between them. The first four are his own daughters, and the other two are daughters of his deceased brother. They were also the first women in their family and village of Balali to take up wresting.

Born in the village of Balali in Haryana to a pehelwan father, Mahavir came to Delhi at the age of 16 to train under Padma Shri-winning wrestler Chandgi Ram. In the 1980s, he earned a name for himself as a successful mercenary wrestler, fighting and winning dangals in different villages in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

In 2014, when Aamir Khan interviewed Geeta and Babita on his talk show Satyamev Jayate, the two sisters revealed how their father introduced them to wrestling.

In 2000, when Indian weightlifter Karnam Maleshwari became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal, Phogat decided to initiate his daughters into wrestling. "In the 2000 Olympics, when Karnam Malleswari won a medal, our father thought that he has four daughters too," Babita recalled on Satyamev Jayate. "When she can win a medal in the Olympics, why can't my daughters win a medal too."

Mahavir was also influenced by his coach, Chandgi Ram, who had introduced his own daughters to wrestling several years ago and whose Delhi-based Chandgi Ram Akhara was one of India's first centres to allow women wrestlers. "Masterji opened my eyes," Mahavir said in a recent interview. "He used to tell me, "What you are doing for your girls, you will see one day that it will bring you great happiness. So keep doing it, don't be scared, face your difficulties like you face opponents, and be deaf to the criticism."

Eventually, because there were no other girls that the sisters could practise with, he asked the Geeta and Babita to start training with boys.

Phogat left his job at the Haryana State Electricity Board and began training his daughters. He asked them to start running in the farms every day and made a makeshift akhada next to his own house. Eventually, because there were no other girls in the village that the sisters could practise with, he asked Geeta and Babita to start training with boys. The decision led to considerable criticism and ridicule from conservative village elders, but Mahavir held his ground.

"I thought my girls can lead the country in women's wrestling if I train them properly. So I taught them all the tricks that I knew and then took them to local dangals. But they were not allowed to fight and I was warned to not bring my girls to the dangals, which the villagers said were fiefdom of boys," Mahavir told The Times of India in 2015. Later, he took Geeta and Babita to the Sports Authority of India centre in Sonepat for further training.

Mahavir proved to be a tough and demanding taskmaster, making his daughters practise as much as the boys and even punishing them. "If we lost to them in a race or fell weak before them, father would hit us," Geeta revealed in the Satyamev Jayate episode. "He would scold us too. We often think that if we had a coach like our father we would have never gone back. We would have come home."

In 2010, the eldest of the Phogat siblings, Geeta, won India's first-ever gold medal in women's wrestling in the 55 kg freestyle category at the Commonwealth Games. She followed it up with a bronze at the 2012 World Championship, another first for Indian women, and became the first-ever Indian woman to qualify for the Olympics in 2012. Her success was emulated by her other sisters, with Babita winning the silver at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and gold in the same competition four years later. Vinesh won a gold a the 2014 Commonwealth Games and a bronze at the 2015 Asian Wrestling Championships.

The rest was history.

Dangal : How much is fiction?

Sanchari Pal, #Dangal: Wondering If All Events Shown in the Movie Actually Happened? Here’s the Truth! December 27, 2016

New Indian Express, Five instances where Aamir Khan's Dangal deviated from the true story, 28th December 2016 lists the same five deviations from the truth.

While the core of director Nitesh Tiwari’s movie, Dangal, story holds true to the real life events of Mahavir Singh Phogat, director Nitesh Tiwari allowed himself a few cinematic liberties. Here are a few facts shown in Dangal that differ from what happened in the real life of the Phogats.

1. Was Mahavir Singh Phogat really disappointed at getting daughters?

In the movie, Mahavir Singh Phogat desperately wants a boy child so that he can win a gold medal for the country. He and his wife try four times to give birth to a boy, but instead give birth to four girls. However, in reality, it was the girls’ mother who was quite disappointed as she was the one who wished for a boy.

Geeta Phogat’s wrestler dad Mahavir Singh glorified in Aamir Khan’s Dangal, Dec 23, 2016, Hindustan Times/ PTI add more details:

When Geeta Phogat, the first Indian woman to win a gold in wrestling at the Commonwealth Games was born in 1988, her mother was quite disappointed as she was wishing for a boy, claims a new book on the Phogats.

The book “Akhada: The Authorized Biography of Mahavir Singh Phogat” tells that surprisingly Geeta’s mother Daya Kaur and not her father Mahavir was disappointed when she learnt that her first child was a girl.

Coached by her father, Geeta wrote her name in the record books as she became India’s woman gold medallist at the Commonwealth games prevailing over Aussie grappler Emily Bensted on October 7, 2010. That she was from Haryana, a state infamous for female foeticide, made her feat even more remarkable.

“As Mahavir stood amid the cheering crowd that day, his gaze locked in on his daughter with pride, the cold winter morning of 1988 flashed before his eyes. That was the day when he had held her in his arms and emphatically proclaimed one day she will make her family proud,” says the book.

“It was not so much a declaration made by a father overwhelmed at the birth of his firstborn as the solemn promise of a man torn apart by his family’s contempt towards his newborn because she was a girl,” says the book written by Hindustan Times journalist Saurabh Duggal.

“One can perhaps imagine the state of Mahavir’s mind as the father of a daughter in the late 80s, when girls were considered a liability. But, ironically, it was not Mahavir but his wife, Daya Kaur, who was hoping that their first child would be a boy,” writes Duggal.

“When the baby was born, the chill of the winter morning stung a little more fiercely as Daya realised that their firstborn was a girl. Her disappointment showed clearly on her face,” the book says.

“I have introduced the girls to wrestling with the aim of winning an Olympic gold for the country and until that happens, my mission will not be accomplished,” says Mahavir Singh Phogat.

2. Was there really a villainous coach as portrayed in the film?

Like Bollywood movies on sports, Dangal creates a villain in the coach Pramod Kadam at the National Sports Academy (played by Girish Kulkarni), who demands that Geeta disavow her previous training. In reality, this character is fictional and there is no such villainous coach in the life of Geeta Phogat or any of her sisters.

3. Did Geeta not Win a Single Tournament Before the Commonwealth Games?

In the movie, Geeta Phogat doesn’t win a single tournament before the Commonwealth Games in 2010. She also receives a lot of flak from the coach in the movie for not excelling on the international stage.

However, in reality, Geeta had earlier won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championship in 2009, where she competed in the 55kg freestyle wrestling category. Interestingly, Geeta’s 2010 CWG gold was followed by another gold medal at the Commonwealth Wrestling Championship in Melbourne in 2011!

4. Was Geeta’s real Commonwealth Games Gold Medal Match the Cliffhanger that is shown in the film?

In the movie, Geeta Phogat struggles to win the gold medal match in the Commonwealth Games in 2010. She scores a five-pointer in the nail-biting final round of the match and clinches the gold medal with a scoreline of 5-1, 4-6, 6-5.

However, in reality, Geeta Phogat completely dominated her opponent and won the match in just two rounds, unlike the one shown in the movie that went on to three rounds. Her score was 1-0, 7-0. Also, Geeta Phogat has long hair in the real match, while her reel counterpart in the movie has a really short hairstyle.

5. Was Mahavir Phogat locked up during Geeta’s Commonwealth Games final match?

Not at all. Watch the video.

In the movie, Mahavir Phogat is taken to a room and locked up by a person sent by the Indian wrestling team coach just before the gold medal match. As a result, he misses the entire final.

In reality, Mahavir Singh Phogat was in the stands during Geeta’s match and saw his daughter win the Commonwealth Games gold medal.

“As Mahavir stood amid the cheering crowd that day, his gaze locked in on his daughter with pride, the cold winter morning of 1988 flashed before his eyes. That was the day when he had held her in his arms and emphatically proclaimed one day she will make her family proud,” Saurabh Duggal describes in his book, ‘Akhada‘.

Razing their hair: the Phogat sisters lose theirs

Saurabh Duggal, Of Dangal fame, Geeta Phogat and her wrestling sisters’ hair-raising story|: Dec 24, 2016

Saurabh Duggal is the authoritative biographer of the Phogat family

Like any other teenage girl, the Phogat sisters too fancied long hair, but Geeta’s father, wrestling’s Dronacharya Mahavir Singh Phogat, was a hard taskmaster
(HT Photo/Keshav Singh)

The Phogat family
(HT Photo/Keshav Singh)

The sisters Phogat

For ‘Dangal’ fame Phogat sisters --- Geeta, Babita, Ritu, Sangeeta, Vinesh and Priyanaka --- sporting long hair was the biggest luxury.

The close-knit family only wished they had the luxury to sport long hair.

Like any other teenage girl, the Phogat sisters too fancied long hair, but Geeta’s father, Mahavir Singh Phogat, was a hard taskmaster.

Ever since he introduced the girls to the gruelling sport of wrestling, rules were meant to be followed stringently --- no deviation, no digression.

And his six trainees had no option but to follow them. The rules were not just for Mahavir’s daughters Geeta, Babita, Ritu and Sangeeta, but also for Vinesh and Priyanka, his deceased brother, Rajpal’s, daughters.

“Be it the wrestling arena or elsewhere, indiscipline was never tolerated,” says Vinesh, whose determined run in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games was stopped by a freak knee injury. Since entering her teens, Vinesh wanted to have long hair and it was only last year that she was ‘authorised’ to cherish her childhood dream, reveals ‘Akhada’, the authorised biography of Mahavir Singh Phogat, penned by this HT correspondent.

“In 2015, we were at a camp for five months away from Tauji’s (Mahavir) prying eyes. There I realised my dream. But, once when it was time to return home, I knew what was going to happen,” says the book.

“(However), to my surprise, as we resumed training, he didn’t say a word. Two or three sessions passed and still he didn’t say anything. But at the back of my mind, I knew this silence was calm before the storm.

“On the third day, during the evening session, he finally asked me and I froze. But, to my surprise, he did not say a word. He just asked. I could finally keep my long hair,”’ Vinesh says in the book, ‘Akhada’.

Except for Geeta, who being the senior-most and an acclaimed name in the sport, was the only one who got the permission to sport hair. The luxury was never accorded to the sisters.

As Vinesh recollected, “Tauji’s (Mahavir) instructions were carved in stone when it came to wrestling, and I knew I had to say goodbye to my long hair. I went in for a haircut the very same day, though very reluctantly.

“I could no longer whip my gorgeous hair back and forth. It had taken me months to grow it, something I had wanted to do since I was a teenager, and it took the hairdresser only a few minutes to trim it.”

A unique sacrifice, but one which earned the girls global recognition.

The Phogats that Dangal omitted

Just before Dangal’s end credits started rolling the audience was briefly apprised of Babita Phogat’s career, which, they realised, had been no less illustrious than Geeta’s. The almost unanimous reaction among the audience was that the film had been unfair to Babita.

Manoj Kaushik, in his article, दंगल में नहीं दिखाई गईं फोगाट परिवार की ये बेटियां, गीता-बबिता से नहीं हैं कम, published in Dainik Bhaskar on Dec 28, 2016, tells us about other Phogats whom the film overlooked:

The Phogats have four daughters, but the film has merely shown Geeta Phogat and Babita Phogat.

Mahavir Phogat’s third daughter Ritu Phogat has not been shown. Ritu is a Pro Wrestling League Wrestler and is also the most expensive player. Jaipur ‘purchased’ her for Rs.36 lakh in the Pro Wrestling League. She was the (senior) National Champion in 2015 and 2016, and won a gold medal in the Commonwealth Championship in 2016.

The youngest daughter Sangeeta Phogat has also not been shown in the film.

The film does not mention Mahavir’s son. Dushyant Phogat was born in 2003, and this son of Mahavir Phogat is not mentioned anywhere in the film.

The film does show Mahavir Phogat's brother’s son Omkar.

Vinesh Phogat and her mother are not in the film. Since her father's death she has been staying with Phogat Mahavir.

Vinesh took part in the Rio Olympics.

Priyanka Phogat, the daughter of another brother of Mahavir, is also a wrestler. There is no mention of her in the film. Since 2015 she has been participating in Pro Wrestling.

See also

Vinesh Phogat