in other news...

http://www.thehindu.com/sport/other-sports/article3734649.ece

go mary go
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/boxing/19136965

this ought to be music to the integro-synthegrator's ears.

Kom has her eye on an Olympic medal. "Firstly for my state, Manipur, and for my country, for India," she says.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/boxing/highlights-mary-kom-wins-olympic-debut.html

Appreciate you posting about her..came across this profile, after I read about her here..(a bit long), but quite interesting..and very inspiring !

http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/lifestyle/India's-shot-gold?page=full

Excerpts:

"The girl would go on to win five world championships. Five in a row, like Borg or Federer at Wimbledon. Two of these five she won after giving birth to twin boys. In a nation bereft of athletic achievement, she ought to be a household name. But most Indians have never heard of her. “Mary kaun?”, people say—Mary who? Some can manage a guess at her sport: “Archery, no, wrestling, wait… weightlifting?”

We are in her house off Mary Kom Road. She is in a t-shirt and phanek, the Manipuri wraparound skirt, watching her four-year-olds run amok in the yard with a toy helicopter, a ladybird and Spiderman action figures, sometimes yelling at them, sometimes smothering them with kisses. The house sits on a concrete plinth, has a concrete gabled front, and concrete walls on which the twins have scribbled so high up that their parents refuse to erase the marks, to “show them how naughty they are”. The house, in a colony built for a national games, was given to Mary by the state. It is one of the few in Imphal with 24-hour electricity: the average is below four hours a day.

To make a living she must rely on state awards (which don’t always reach her) and the salary from a sports-quota position with the Manipur police. Offered the designation of constable on winning her first world championship, she declined it. A few years later she accepted the post of sub-inspector, on a monthly salary of 8,500 rupees (£100). Following two promotions and a landmark government pay-scale revision, she still only draws 31,000 rupees a month (£360), a trifle in inflationary times. Since 2009, when she signed up with a talent management firm, Infinity Optimal Solutions, a few modest sponsorship deals have come her way.

Against this are the multimillion-rupee endorsements for cricketers, and the player auctions for the Indian Premier League, where talent more ordinary than hers is bought for £1m for a six-week tournament. This astonishes Mary, and she pauses for thought, totting up the grants, awards and deals through five world championships. “In ten years I have not made total of even one crore (£125,000).”

In her address to her students, Mary is animated, maternal, full of gestures and modulations. Freed from the constraints of English and Hindi, she talks for 25 minutes in Meiteilon, the lingua franca of Manipur. “You are lucky,” she tells them. “I can at least go and ask for support for you. Don’t ever look back in your life, that you are from a poor family—no. Go ahead in your life, ahead ahead ahead.”

I hope she wins gold. That will get her at least a couple of good sponsorship deals. She will also be the first Indian woman to win Olympic gold.

panini press wrote:I hope she wins gold. That will get her at least a couple of good sponsorship deals. She will also be the first Indian woman to win Olympic gold.

I do too! She is inspiring..years of hard work, simplicity, tough sport- gentle persona.. a woman-Mom trying to balance family with her goals..so many nice things about this story..

Will make a special wish for her:)

panini press wrote:I hope she wins gold. That will get her at least a couple of good sponsorship deals. She will also be the first Indian woman to win Olympic gold.

manipur seems like a different world and she's definitely like no other indian i know. she's putting in the hard yards with no help from the system. i'd love to see her win gold.

i haven't looked at all the posts. have you guys talked about krishna poonia, the 35-yr-old railroad employee from NI who is a finalist in the discus throw and the first indina woman to make it into the finals in that sport? jat, by the way.

pravalika nanda wrote:i haven't looked at all the posts. have you guys talked about krishna poonia, the 35-yr-old railroad employee from NI who is a finalist in the discus throw and the first indina woman to make it into the finals in that sport? jat, by the way.

yes we have. the women's discus throw final is over. poonia placed 7th.

nanda it's a tragedy that we don't have a gongura pickle eating female weight lifter this time around.

oh, 7th is not so bad in the world. and she could be pretty too if she tried.

max, consider it a window of opp to train and send a dosai-eating, bn-dancing, cm-listening tamizh girl to the match.

also, it's unlike you to miss a comma.

pravalika nanda wrote:

also, it's unlike you to miss a comma.

it is nanda, it is. it is also unlike me to miss hyphens. i blame it all on some recent career good news, and added to that a bottle of marques casa concha cabernet sauvignon. don't get too alarmed if i drop articles, prepositions, and conjunctions as the night progresses, in addition to poor punctuation.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

pravalika nanda wrote:

also, it's unlike you to miss a comma.

it is nanda, it is. it is also unlike me to miss hyphens. i blame it all on some recent career good news, and added to that a bottle of marques casa concha cabernet sauvignon. don't get too alarmed if i drop articles, prepositions, and conjunctions as the night progresses, in addition to poor punctuation.

congratulations, max ! aiyaa un jenmaththil en nALum ponnALaam.. madhuvundu..sorundu sugam undu endralae sorgaththil idam undu..

>> Kom has her eye on an Olympic medal. "Firstly for my state, Manipur, and for my country, for India," she says.


Atleast she put her nation Manipur first.


A few years ago I was presenting a paper at a conference in swansea. The chairman introduced me as from India. When I started my presentation I said, "Mr. Chairman, I am from Tamil Nadu living in the USA". Tell the world you are from Tamil Nadu. Have some self-esteem.

Kayalvizhi wrote:>> Kom has her eye on an Olympic medal. "Firstly for my state, Manipur, and for my country, for India," she says.


Atleast she put her nation Manipur first.


A few years ago I was presenting a paper at a conference in swansea. The chairman introduced me as from India. When I started my presentation I said, "Mr. Chairman, I am from Tamil Nadu living in the USA". Tell the world you are from Tamil Nadu. Have some self-esteem.

Why? Shouldn't village or district take precedence? Have some pride in your roots, girl.