The Phogat sisters, champion free-style wrestlers, Geeta and Babita gave full credit to their wrestler father Mahavir Singh for introducing them to wrestling and making them into champions. Speaking to a full-house at the Knowledge Seminar on the last day of Goa Fest 2017, the siblings revealed how their hard task master father persevered to train them in the most trying circumstances to get the best out of them.
‘Dangal’ gets credit for changing their lives
The sisters said that wake up time was always 4 am and there were no breaks through the week. “Our father was of the firm opinion that early mornings were the best time to train. He used to say, ‘God is watching you and he will help you because you are making an extra effort, while the others are asleep.’
Recounting a few anecdotes, the sisters said that they used to carry their blankets to the wrestling pit in a bid to catch a few winks. “We used to alternately keep watch over our father’s movements,” Babita said.
According to the sisters, their father always wanted the girls to put in hundred per cent effort every day. “There was no scope of a compromise. He was relentless and very strict about our training,” Geeta said.
Speaking about the biopic, ‘Dangal’ which brought them into national limelight, the sisters credited the Aamir Khan film for changing their lives. “The film brought our father national recognition and we too gained tremendously from it. We are now known across the country,” Geeta said.
According to the champion wrestler, the film made people realise that girls were no lesser than boys when it came to physical sport. Babita added that when they trained in shorts, people used to pass negative remarks. “This has changed with the recognition that the film has brought us. People now only look at our performances.”
