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Sakshi Malik's ‘Witness’ is a story of grappling with decisions on and off the mat
Summary
Sakshi Malik’s memoir, ‘Witness’, is an honest, informative account of a young athlete’s experiences in sport and off the field
“I’ve never enjoyed the actual art of confrontation."
You would not expect to hear that from a professional wrestler. Not from Sakshi Malik, who won India’s first Olympic wrestling medal among women, a bronze in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, besides a host of other international prizes. Nor from any combat sportsperson, whose profession, you would imagine, rests on their inherent desire for confrontation, like boxers Jake Paul and Mike Tyson showed recently.
This confession from Malik is just one of several honest, bold and unapologetic admissions she makes in her memoir Witness, written with Jonathan Selvaraj. Autobiographies can range from racy, flat-out thrillers like Andre Agassi’s Open to the placid, safe Playing it My Way by Sachin Tendulkar.
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In India, they tend to lean towards the latter, in an attempt to ensure no one is offended, no feathers ruffled. Witness is an exception, an informative, honest account of a young athlete’s experiences in sport and off the field, written with disarming simplicity. Now retired from the sport, Malik does not seem to fear repercussions—she has already had a taste of that after last year’s protests—which makes Witness meaty.
In India, they tend to lean towards the latter, in an attempt to ensure no one is offended, no feathers ruffled. Witness is an exception, an informative, honest account of a young athlete’s experiences in sport and off the field, written with disarming simplicity. Now retired from the sport, Malik does not seem to fear repercussions—she has already had a taste of that after last year’s protests—which makes Witness meaty.
A significant aspect of Malik’s career, besides the career-defining medal at the Olympics, was her participation in the protests against the Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Last year, a number of wrestlers took to the streets demanding the removal of Singh from his post over charges of harassment and intimidation.
Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia and Malik were the face of the protests, with the defining image being of Vinesh and another wrestler Sangeeta Phogat. The two hold on to each other while lying on the road with the national flag right by them, as a bunch of law enforcement agents’ hands try to pry them apart.
A substantial portion of Witness is dedicated to these protests, a gripping, emotional account of courage and betrayal, especially by activist Naresh Tikait, Babita Phogat, who initially led the campaign, and the administration. While Malik mentions being let down by the “vindictive government" and the prime minister, without naming him, and the hopelessness of the entire movement that has not resulted in any significant changes to the WFI, she is clear that her involvement in the demonstrations accelerated the end of her career.
“As a wrestler, I’d served my purpose to the government and now there are new influencers for it to find. Hopefully, less troublesome ones," she writes. Malik’s career nosedived soon after the Olympics, a consequence of loss of form and confidence, besides the more recent conflict with the federation.
She does address other controversial perspectives of the protests. It was, for instance, suggested that she and the others were either trying to usurp some WFI positions themselves or were merely trying to avoid having to undergo selections trials. She says when Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia subsequently accepted exemptions from the Asian Games trials, it hurt the image of their protest.
One especially moving account from the protests—when the wrestlers camped outside Delhi’s Jantar Mantar for days, sleeping in tents and swatting mosquitoes—is of her running away from the police and being chased, an Olympian on the run for merely protesting against injustice. “You know that on the mat there are still some rules and order. Where’s that in society? Where do you get justice that easily?" Malik asks in the book.
The winner of three Commonwealth Games medals spares no one, including her parents, who were supportive in the beginning of her career, but later she believes may have pilfered some money off her account. She claims her fellow wrestler Manisha deliberately forfeited a match so that Malik would not get a medal in the national championships while Geetika Jhakhar was a “dirty wrestler" who played rough.
She does not hold back when talking about people who may have wronged her or when mentioning those she didn’t get along with, including rivals, administrators and fellow wrestlers. The only person who comes through unscathed and shining in this account is her husband and fellow wrestler Satyawart Kadian, a source of constant support in her career. Their marriage, against family’s wishes, was also a period of intense drama in her life and the first time she had to stand up against her mother.
This is also a story of struggles, sleeping on railway platforms, travelling on unconfirmed train tickets, resting on a blanket next to the washroom, avoiding officials like Singh during tournaments, and of fear. Malik admits to being afraid, almost sick with worry, before bouts because she could not bear to lose, a fear she carried to the end of her career.
Besides, she dealt with insecurities, of her looks, her wrestlers’ arms that she didn’t feel were feminine enough, the distinction of class while attending felicitation ceremonies in five-star hotels and meeting celebrities. She admits to being self-conscious in fancy soirees, and of her fashion sense, which evolved post Rio de Janeiro with help from her manager. One lovely anecdote is of Malik having a fan-girl moment with tennis player Sania Mirza, who she admired not just as an athlete but also for the latter’s sense of style and sophistication.
Malik is sparing in her admiration for other wrestlers, open about her difficulties in communicating with foreign wrestlers through her mix of Hindi and English and in declaring her awe of Japanese sportswomen, whose wrestling style she describes as “contactless".
Her story is of a shy girl growing up in Mokhra and Rohtak, who fails at athletics and gymnastics before wandering into a wrestling hall at Sir Chhotu Ram Stadium. She falls in love with this sport, with support from her family, which becomes critical in a male-dominated Haryana.
She is a slow starter, who takes time to start winning and gaining in confidence, as it takes “a long time for my other skills to improve to the level where they were able to compensate for that deep-seated fear". She is not more talented than others, but more dedicated and hard working. She has an unusual—among wrestlers—need for cleanliness, and a greater proclivity to academics than others in the field.
“I don’t know anyone who wrestles as a hobby," she writes. “There is no middle ground in wrestling. You are either going to quit it very early on or you are going to do it for years and years. And it never gets any easier."
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The Olympics, her crowning moment, is one of the most descriptive portions of Witness, a detailed narrative of how she got to the podium. The bronze medal match, against Kyrgystan’s Aisuluu Tynybekova, gets a dramatic, round-by-round, retelling of what transpired and what followed. One of the highlights of her celebration, two days of what felt like a party at the Olympic village, was almost permanently camping at McDonald’s, gaining six kilos at the restaurant after having been on a diet for many weeks prior.
Although McDonald’s had the biggest queues, Malik and physiotherapist Rucha would take Vinesh, injured during the games, on a wheelchair to get burgers because there was a special—and shorter—line for athletes with injuries.
Vinesh, who missed out on a medal in the Paris 2024 Olympics after being disqualified for not meeting the weight criteria, recently highlighted this painful and strenuous process wrestlers go through to shed kilos in the hours leading to the weigh-in before a bout. Malik elaborates on this peculiar practice, dedicating an entire, aptly-named chapter “The Fight Before the Fight".
The category wrestlers compete in is determined by their weight—Malik’s Olympic bronze, for example, came in the 58kg category. While the rules have changed, wrestlers had to initially stand on the scale a day before their competition and weigh under the limit they had entered for. Malik says that if she competed in the 58kg category, she would normally weigh about 63kgs a week before her weigh-in and start losing weight in the days leading up to bout.
Calculating every single gram that could be eliminated before getting on the scale, this would include minor details like trimming the edge of the costume, cutting hair, sitting in the sauna, obsessing over everything she eats while training through the starvation. Dehydration forms a large part of this process and that would sometimes lead to delirium, as she experienced once while sitting upside down in a sauna in a misguided, desperate attempt to shed a few ounces.
“Making the weight (or wazan todna as they call it) is what every wrestler considers the battle before the actual fight on the mat," she writes. Adding to their difficulty, the WFI would sometimes plan the wrestlers’ travels abroad for competitions so poorly—and at the last minute—that they would have to wear sauna suits at airport layovers to try and lose weight.
There are no photographs in Witness, which could have added to Malik’s story. Minor editing errors notwithstanding, this is an easy read, the most engaging book on wrestling since Rudraneil Sengupta’s Enter the Dangal.
If Witness manages to somehow reignite the fight against the federation official, Malik would consider that a job well done.
Arun Janardhan is a Mumbai-based journalist who covers sports, business leaders and lifestyle. He posts @iArunJ.
