To its
credit, Olympic bronze medallist, Sakshi Malik’s momentous memoir - Witness,
does not bother with pussyfooting around what was and is an explosive issue.
The Olympian’s style on and off the wrestling mat is simple, straightforward,
brutally effective and savagely spectacular. With Jonathan Selvaraj, Sakshi
takes no prisoners as she goes after not just the likes of Brij Bhushan Sharan
Singh and Amit Shah, but even fellow wrestlers like Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang
Punia, Babita Phogat, her own mother (with whom there was an eventual
rapprochement) and going so far as to almost but not quite accuse a fellow
competitive wrestler of witchcraft. But that’s Sakshi for you.
The reader
is taken on a whirlwind journey across Sakshi’s life which is one of strife,
triumph, love, loss, tragedy and redemption. It has the vim and verve of a
blockbuster while being grounded in raw emotion which is unlikely to leave even
the most jaded of readers unmoved. She is as every bit as hard on herself as
she is with those who have crossed her. In a poignant portion of her
recollections, she reveals how her 7 – year old self would occasionally steal
money from her classmates, driven to do so by her poverty. This excuse is
trotted out to explain but not defend her actions. Years later when she herself
becomes a victim of robbery on multiple occasions, Sakshi philosophizes that it
is karma catching up with her. She is also hyper – critical of the ‘mental
weakness’ that saw her struggle to stay competitive and relevant in a cutthroat
world and her arms which she maligns for being too muscular, with 14 – inch
thick biceps.
A rousing saga
of a superstar athlete who overcame overwhelming odds to carve out a story of
stupendous success, Witness is also a stark, unsparing account of the
terrible corruption and incompetence of the sporting system in India. We get a close-up
view of fat cat officials and state – approved thugs who far from helping
athletes are committed to being hindrances at every turn. Readers will be
appalled to learn about officials stopping bouts at the most inopportune
moments for photo – ops or to allow a favoured athlete to win over the
deserving one, abysmal conditions in training facilities and tournaments held
in arenas lacking basic amenities, flight tickets being belatedly booked which
sees competitors reaching the international venue a couple of hours before
crucial match – ups, money donated from sponsors which would guarantee a
regular income for sportspeople being swallowed up by the larcenists in the
system, the sexual harassment of female athletes and the active sabotage of
entire careers if anyone protests, with the ruling party taking the part of the
villains over the sons and daughters of India who covered her in sporting glory
despite the very Indian nature of their troubles. It is a modern Indian far-from–a-fairytale
of evil triumphing over good, though we all declare otherwise for fear of being
labelled anti – national.
Brij Bhushan
Singh is not quite the super villain to Sakshi’s Wonder Woman. Rather, in Witness,
he represents every lowlife who has ever been undeservedly promoted to power
and seeks to compensate for his glaring inadequacies and utter lack of even a
modicum of merit by doubling down on the worst of his impulses which includes
molesting minors, because he knows he will be protected by other hooligans in
high places, just like him. Scathing as her condemnation of Singh and even the
Prime Minister is, Sakshi makes it clear that it was the cracks that emerged
from within their own ranks that also contributed to the undoing of the
wrestlers’ protests. However, she is confident, that the good fight is still
being fought, and it will not be long before justice is served. Of course, that
is doubtful to say the least, but we can also dare to believe like Sakshi
herself did at her lowest, that victory can be eked out of crushing defeat, and
it is the deserving who will finally emerge as the victors.
This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine
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