Today, India took home eight (8!) medals in 13 categories at the 4th World Women’s Boxing Championship! The matches were exciting, but we had an inkling that India was going to win. They claimed an impressive four Golds, in addition to the Best Overall Team award. The press was in a frenzy throughout the finals, lunging at the champions as they came out of the ring. They gave new meaning to the terms “media circus.”
I was jockeying for position at the side of the boxing ring, planting two feet shoulder width apart and refusing to budge for any weasely photographer who tried to sneak in. I was surprised by the photo and film crews´ etiquette; they don´t take much care to avoid jostling you or getting in your frame while you´re shooting. I uttered a few choice words to those who swung elbows and camera bags and ruined my shots.
Poor Ameesha, I had her running back and forth to the camera bag all day, fetching the tripod, new tapes, batteries, microphones.
We had such a tough time finding a quiet place to conduct interviews with the boxers during the competition. Many of them weren´t thrilled about having the press come to their hotel rooms so we scoured the venue for a good spot. Too much echo, a loud fan, terrible lighting… We had no favourable options. We ended up talking to a few athletes outside, including Klara Svensson, the Swedish boxer who took Silver in the 60 kg and Katie Taylor of Ireland, who was a truly impressive fighter (and who incidentally won Gold in her weight category). We´re not very optimistic about the sound quality but we didn´t have any choice.
Now that the competition is over, we are planning our next move. We will be doing pickup shots of scenes around Delhi. We may go down to Agra to shoot the Taj Mahal.
We also have some great news: on November 29 we will fly to Imphal, Manipur, to visit the three time world champion, Mary Kom. Her home state is quite far east, bordering Burma, and it´s supposed to be the “Switzerland of India.” We are really looking forward to the experience and getting to know Mary Kom a little better. I´ll try to post some pictures from the competition soon.
