Haryana mason’s daughter, Pooja, takes flight in Indian athletics

High Jumper Pooja, 16, rises from humble beginnings with rudimentary equipment to make her mark. Fascinated with flights, she aspires to get her parents on a plane.

Scaling new heights: Pooja is already being touted as the next big thing in Indian athletics.

Like many parents of kids who play sports, Hansraj Singh took a break from work to watch his daughter Pooja compete last week. He was in Haryana; her playground was in South Korea. 

On the screen of a mobile phone, he watched his 16-year-old daughter clear a height of 1.82m to win silver with a new Indian junior record in the women’s high jump at the Asian Junior Championships in Yecheon on June 6.

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After the competition, he accepted the congratulations of his co-workers. A few of them spoke of getting their own children into sports. Hansraj got back to work, mixing cement and lining up bricks to build a staircase at a construction site he works at these days as a  rajmistri (senior mason).

From modest means: Pooja’s father Hansraj Singh works as a mason and has had to endure financial challenges. But he never let that get in the way of his daughter’s dreams. | Photo Credit: Jonathan Selvaraj

As a mason, Hansraj is a man of modest means, but he hasn’t allowed that to come in Pooja’s way. Without the wherewithal, the athlete’s beginnings were, of course, humble. For instance, Pooja learned her sport over a bamboo pole with sacks of rice husk as a landing mat. Now, she is seen as potentially becoming one of India’s best high jumpers.

Considering her event, it is perhaps apt that Pooja loves flying. She vividly remembers every single flight she has taken this year. “ Iss saal aath baar chali hun plane mein (I’ve travelled by plane eight times this year),” she says. This includes flights from Delhi to Bangalore for the national athletics camp and to Tashkent for the Asian U-18 championships. The last of her plane journeys was last week. It brought her back to India from South Korea.

At Yecheon, Pooja showed glimpses of going even higher. She nearly managed a clearance at 1.84m on her final attempt, only clipping the bar with her heel even as the rest of her body had crossed over cleanly. Her mark of 1.82m improves on Rubina Yadav’s junior record of 1.81m set five years ago, and is the third best in the U-18 category in the world this year. Her jump is also the best by any Indian woman this year.

Learning the ropes: Pooja learned her sport over a bamboo pole with sacks of rice husk as a landing mat.  | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

With nearly four years still in the under-20 category, Pooja is being seen by some as having a chance to threaten Sahana Kumari’s national record of 1.92m set in 2012.

Pooja is the only one from her family who has ever flown. Air travel wasn’t in the picture for any of them, neither were national records, high jump, or sport for that matter. Those are the sort of dreams that don’t get very far in Bosti.

It takes about four hours by road from Delhi to reach this village set amid fields of cotton, rice and millets in Haryana’s Fatehabad district. There’s nothing remarkable about Bosti except that one of India’s most promising junior athletes lives here.

It’s easy to identify Pooja’s house. It’s the one with all the blue India jerseys drying on a clothesline after having been washed by her mother, Kiran. The three-room house is modest. Outside is a storehouse for fodder and space for the family’s three cattle.

There is no background of sports in the family. Hansraj is a quiet, practical man. Apart from laying brick and cement on construction sites in Bosti and surrounding villages, he has built the family home himself as well. He built only three rooms because that’s what he could afford by way of materials from the Rs 15,000 or so he makes each month. “You shouldn’t spend more than what you have,” he says.

Hansraj didn’t always want to be a mason. He took up the job after he got married. What he wanted was to be a sportsperson. “I used to play kabaddi when I was in school. But I never knew how to take it forward.”

He had no big dreams for Pooja either. “As a child she was very strong and flexible. She would jump up on a charpoy and twist through its ropes with ease. But I never thought if I put her in sports, she would achieve so much,” he admits. He didn’t even consider athletics at first. After a display of yoga at a village programme, Pooja told her father she wanted to take it up. Hansraj took Pooja, then 10, to neighbouring Parta village where a coach, Balwan Singh, taught yoga as well as other sports. The venue — Parta Sports Academy.

Pooja with her parents Hansraj and Kiran

The name Parta Sports Academy is a lot fancier sounding than it is. Coach Balwan operates his academy on the premises of the government school in Parta and an open space next to the Ramdev temple behind it. A former 800m runner, he found his calling in coaching. He does not have any formal training as a coach, but, over the years, he has produced national-level athletes in track and field, yoga as well as multiple state-level women cricketers.

Pooja started out learning yoga, but coach Balwan felt she had the potential to be more. “After about a year, I tried to see if she had the ability to do anything else. She was very flexible already because she was doing chakrasana and dhanurasana (yoga poses in which the body is arched to resemble a wheel and a bow, respectively). I felt she had a lot of spring in her step, so, I thought I would test her in the high jump,” he says.

It took a few tries using the side straddle – scissors technique – and Pooja cleared a height of 60cm. “Itna bhi height nahin tha (It wasn’t much). But once I cleared that height, I started really liking it,” she says of her start as a high jumper.

While she had the aptitude for the event, there was a problem. Parta Sports Academy had a high jump facility only in the loosest sense of the term. There’s not much by way of equipment here. “Pura jugaad se chalta hai yahaan (Everything runs on make do here),” laughs coach Balwan.

Standing out: It’s easy to identify Pooja’s house. It’s the one with all the blue jerseys drying on a clothesline after they have been washed by her mother Kiran. | Photo Credit: Jonathan Selvaraj

There wasn’t a high jump pit for instance. Pooja started off landing on a judo mat. When coach Balwan started teaching her the Fosbury flop technique, in which athletes land on their neck and shoulders, the mat was upgraded with sacks of rice husk to cushion the impact at landing.

It was only well after a year of Pooja starting the sport that a government official procured a proper landing mat. That too is splitting at the seams. Coach Balwan stuffs it with thermocol to extend its life. Instead of a springboard to master the takeoff technique, the children at the academy use an old rubber tyre.

It’s functional but comes with its own challenges. “Agar bar ko touch karte ho toh peeth chhil jati hai (If you touch the bamboo pole while jumping, your back gets skinned),” complains Pooja.

Pooja after her training at the academy

What she might have lacked by way of equipment, was made up for in innate talent. “Within a few months she was winning block-level, district-level and state-level competitions,” says coach Balwan.

Talent aside, there was family support. “There are some parents who support 10 per cent; Hansraj supported Pooja 110 per cent. When he got time off work, he would come to watch her training sessions,” he says.

Indeed, while all plane journeys are special for Pooja, the one that stands out for her is the first one she took – in 2021 when she competed at the junior national championships in Guwahati. “That was the first time I went on a plane. I was so excited to see the clouds. I took pictures. I made video calls from the airport. Ghar me sabko dikhaya. Kisi aur ne plane dekha tak nahin (I showed the pictures and scenes to everyone in my family. None of them had even seen a plane up close),” says a beaming Pooja.

Hansraj remembers that first flight well too. “Before the competition, coach told me Pooja had a very good chance to win. But if she took a train, it would be a two-day journey and she would be very tired and wouldn’t be able to perform well. He suggested she go by air,” recalls Hansraj.

Hansraj is already thinking of adding an extension to the family home. “Right now, there’s no room for Pooja’s medals. They are just hanging on nails now. I think I’ll build another room where she can keep them,” he says.

The cost for the one-way trip came to Rs 12,000 – nearly as much as he makes each month. For Hansraj, it was an easy decision. “I had to borrow money from people but it wasn’t a problem. Maybe she wouldn’t have won, but I wanted to give her the best chance I could. There are some things you should budget for. But there are some things for which you shouldn’t,” he says with a smile.

Pooja would win gold in the U-14 girls’ category with a jump of 1.41m. But even that moment of triumph was short-lived as soon after she picked up an injury to her quadriceps.

It kept her out of competition for the next 15 months as she focused on healing and getting stronger. Hansraj paid for expensive physiotherapy in New Delhi and also bought a scooter so that Pooja wouldn’t have to cycle to the sports academy.

Pooja returned to action with a bang, winning a gold medal in the U-16 girls’ category at the 2022 junior nationals with a new national record of 1.76m. She followed that up with another gold in the U-18 category at the 2022 youth national championships.

Despite those efforts, that were head and shoulders above the rest of the field, Pooja was inexplicably not included in competitions such as the Khelo India Youth Games at the start of this year. Apart from a near assured medal, not competing in the Khelo India Youth Games meant Pooja wouldn’t have a shot at the scholarship given to winners at the event.

Guiding force: Pooja with her coach Balwan Singh. Balwan has played an important role in Pooja’s overall development as an athlete. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

In its absence, it is left to Pooja’s father and her coach to keep supporting her. “It’s not easy. There are expenses of her diet, travel, and shoes. When Hansraj can’t find the money, I contribute what I can,” says coach Balwan.

It’s a price the two are willing to pay. Hansraj is already thinking of adding an extension to the family home. “Right now, there’s no room for Pooja’s medals. They are just hanging on nails now. I think I’ll build another room where she can keep them,” he says.

There are bound to be a few medals as Pooja has multiple competitions lined up for the season. She is already looking forward to her next few flights. There’s one to Trinidad for the Commonwealth Youth Games for which she’s already made the team. There is also, potentially, one to Pattaya, Thailand, for the Asian Championships – whose qualifying standard she met at Yecheon.

But there is another flight Pooja really hopes to make. “I’ve been on so many flights but my parents have never been on one. My dream is, one day, I will take my parents on a plane,” she says.