Mary Kom, the new Sports Icon of India.

Once I had seen a Bengali film ‘Koni’. The film was about the struggle of a swimmer, Koni, against several odds. A dialogue, “Fight! Koni, Fight!”, was used quite a few times in the film almost as a theme dialogue.

No, this article is not about the film ‘Koni’, it’s about M.C. Mary Kom, the new sports icon of India. But there is a similarity of the life of Mary Kom with the film ‘Koni’ and the similarity lies in the theme dialogue of the film, ‘Fight! Mary Kom, Fight!”

Mary Kom with her Bronze medal.

Her full name is very difficult for pronunciation, Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom. In short M.C. Mary Kom or Mary Kom. People call her Magnificent Mary. Truly magnificent; a girl of height 5’2’’ and weight <49kg has shown the courage to fight the every odds of life and won success in the topmost platform of sports, the Olympic, deserves the Adjective. Born in a peasant family of a remote village of a remote state Manipur, the conservative society, a male dominated sport, a family woman (mother of twin boys) all these facts do not tally with a medal of Olympic. But she has made it possible. Even in Olympic she has to fight in a higher weight category (51 kg) as her own category (49 kg) was not listed in this year Olympic. Her event, women boxing, has been introduced for the first time in Olympic this year and for this as an Indian I must thank Olympic committee unless we would not have got a new woman sports icon. Koni never aspired an Olympic medal, her aspiration was merely a medal at national level. Actually when the film ‘Koni’ was made none of our girls had shown any remarkable performance in the platform of Olympic. It was P.T. Usha who showed a ray of hope in 1984 but did not win a medal. Karnam Maleshwari was the first Indian girl who won a bronze medal in Olympic in 2000. After Karnam Maleshwari this year both Saina Nehwal and Mary Kom have won Bronze medal.

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