There she is, with the crowd eating out of her hand, talking about our film at the Rotary Club in BC. I’m expecting a minute-by-minute account of what happened any day now.
Go Joshi!
Special thanks to Paul for these images. Extra special thanks to Ameesha for not killing me for posting this online.
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Our dear Ms. Joshi is spreading the good word. This time, she’s in British Columbia where she’ll be a guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Kelowna Ogopogo with a lecture entitled “Women Boxers of India.” If you’re in the area, head on over.
Oct. 28, 2009 @ Rotary Club of Kelowna Ogopogo
Kelowna Yacht Club
1414 Water St.
Kelowna, B.C. V1Y 1J1
I’m so darn proud. More details.
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Jaideep Dave, a journalist from Man’s World (”India’s Classiest Men’s Magazine”) interviewed us last month for an article about our film:
THE RING
A three-year project by two Montreal-based independent film-makers could result in an engaging account of the struggles and triumphs of the Indian woman boxer.
BY JAIDEEP DAVE
Man’s World
Three years ago Ameesha Joshi, a 37-year-old independent film-maker from Canada, chanced upon an exhibit in Montreal featuring Indian women boxers training at a Chennai beach. Joshi was amazed at what she saw. These were courageous women, she thought, from a country with traditional mores engaged in a sport that doesn’t conform to the stereotypical notion of “what women ought to do”. In November 2006, she landed up in Delhi with a mission to breathe life into her idea: to make a documentary on the “ups and downs” of the Indian national women’s boxing team. She was accompanied by Anna Sarkissian, a friend and former classmate at Montreal’s Concordia University.
Today, they are trawling through 142 hours of video footage. According to Joshi, the documentary, tentatively titled ‘With this Ring’ and expected to be released next year, will give the audience an idea about a day in the life of an Indian woman boxer, about cultural obstacles and governmental apathy, and also about rebellion and freedom. And it is not just about boxers who are women but also about women who are boxers. “Boxing is a passport to better financial opportunities, and a new sort of freedom for these girls,” says Sarkissian.
Joshi and Sarkissian started their journey with the 2006 World Boxing Championship in Delhi, where the Indian team came out top with four golds, four silvers and a bronze.
They also went to Manipur to meet four-time international amateur boxing gold medalist and M C Mary Kom, who was recently — and very belatedly — awarded the Khel Ratna.
“Mary’s parents came to know about her boxing pursuit only when they saw her photograph in a newspaper after she had won a state-level boxing event. She used to fund her boxing training from the expenses that were meant for food,” says Sarkissian, 27.
On their second trip to India last year, the duo put up at training camps in Vishakapatnam and Hisar in Haryana and the experience left Joshi in the awe of the adaptive skills of the women. “The training facilities in India are not fully up to the mark. There are times when there’s no water, no electricity and yet, the boxers continue with their training unruffled. These are not just any women, they are fighters in every sense of the word,” says Joshi.
Sarkissian, though, believes that Indian women boxers are better off than their Canadian counterparts, in one respect: “The medal-winning boxers of India get government jobs and get travel and boarding expenses; the Canadian boxers have no such privileges. They are on their own.” In Hisar, Joshi and Sarkissian also visited Preeti Beniwal’s home. Beniwal’s father, a boxing coach, had actually encouraged his daughter, a 22-year-old former North Zone amateur boxing champ, to take up boxing.
“Preeti is one of the few boxers studying and training at the same time,” says Joshi. It’s not easy for these women to juggle any other occupation with training, because, as Sarkissian puts it, “they spend 10 months a year in national training camps or training at sports centres in their home towns.”
Joshi and Sarkissian also followed the boxers to China in 2008 for the World Amateur Boxing Championship and then headed back to Ambala to stay with three-time national boxing champion (50 kg category) and World Boxing Championship 2006 bronze medalist Chotto Loura. “Chotto lives alone in a cement bungalow with two rooms and a small kitchen. She was recently robbed of everything she owns and had to borrow two beds from a neighbour for us to stay with her,” writes Joshi in a December 2008 post on her blog on citizenshift.org.
The duo also visited the Indian Railways employee at work. “She does little actual work, and laughed about it as she sat at her desk, clicking her pen. She took out a folder at one point and started writing as Anna filmed her. We asked if she was just working for the camera, she smiled,” writes Joshi, who also met this year’s Arjuna award-winner Sarita Devi. “Her moves are quick and graceful and she lets out a shrill sound while throwing punches and jabs,” says Sarkissian.
Joshi’s and Sarkissian’s most heartfelt moment was when Mary Kom returned to her training after she had given birth to twins. “It’s inspiring to see her straddle motherhood and boxing training,” says Joshi.
Click the thumbnail below to view a PDF of the article.
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Mary’s suspension has been revoked. She apologized. But issue has not been forgotten. Col P K Muralidharan Raja, Amateur Indian Boxing Federation Secretary General, says the situation will be discussed at their annual general meeting on Oct. 27.
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Serena Williams is not the only pro to lose her cool.
Mary Kom was suspended from boxing for one month after uttering some unsavoury comments to the judges at India’s National Boxing Championships after she lost a quarter final bout to Pinky Jangra, an up and comer from Hisar, Haryana (whom we visited in August 2008).
The bout was tied 15-15 and the judges made the final call, giving the win to young Pinky.
Mary and Sarita Devi, both from the northeast state of Manipur, allege that the officials were discriminating against them because of their backgrounds. Mary has often said that she encounters prejudice in India and is treated like a foreigner because she doesn’t look like a “typical” Indian.
Boxing officials weren’t too pleased, saying that she was a senior boxer who must set the example for others.
Mary also made headlines earlier this week for saying that the accommodations at the championships were sub-standard. Rakesh Thakran, co-ordinator of Indian Boxing Federation, didn’t seem fazed by her comments.
“We cannot break our protocol and provide special treatment to a player irrespective of her achievement,” he said.
This isn’t exactly news. Just yesterday, the Athletic Federation of India had to publicly apologize for making Indian track superstar P.T. Usha cry. She voiced concerns about the lodgings provided during the National Open Athletics Championship in Bhopal, to which the organizers basically said, “take it or leave it.” The media picked up the story and they have since changed their tune.
“She has definitely made her nation proud and she will be taken care of,” said Lalit Bhanot, AFI Secretary.
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Today, the Sunday Times (not those Times, the other Times) had this article about the Afghan boxing team who will be competing in London 2012 in full Islamic dress.
Mirwais Wardak, who runs Fighting for Peace, the Kabul boxing programme, said the team were challenging stereotypes in Afghanistan about how women should behave.
Sound familiar?
In Iran, on the other hand, they’re saying na-ah to women’s boxing so far. The reason? The outfit. Iranian MP Ahmad Nategh-Nouri, also head of the Iranian Boxing Federation, said they haven’t even tried to set up a women’s team because of it. “The only impediment has been the sport’s clothes,” he said.
I smell a sequel…
As more and more boxing teams keep coming out of the woodwork in time for the London games, we better get cracking and finish our film, stat.
(Thanks Alan for sending this along.)
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With This Ring is an independent documentary film by Ameesha Joshi and Anna Sarkissian. Since 2006, they've been tracking the Indian Women’s National Boxing Team, who are some of the best boxers in the world.
ameeshaAmeesha Joshi is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Concordia University in Montreal. She started filmmaking in 2000 when she lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her very first film was a short fiction called The Red Glove which just so happened to be about a woman boxer. Email Ameesha: ameesha AT withthisringfilm DOT com
annaAnna Sarkissian is an independent filmmaker from Montreal, Quebec. She studied film production at Concordia University's School of Cinema. She has vowed to learn Hindi in the next 30 days, or your money back. Email Anna: anna AT withthisringfilm DOT com