Book review: A valuable anthology of Indian sport and place of women in it

The author’s striking ability to put herself in the story of these remarkable athletes and to seamlessly juxtapose the personal and the universal gives the reader a layered and contextual lens.

The Day I Became a Runner by Sohini Chattopadhyay is a compelling ode to the athletes of pre- and post-independent India.

The Day I Became a Runner by Sohini Chattopadhyay is a compelling ode to the athletes of pre- and post-independent India who blazed a trail for women in a field as gendered as any — sport. The book is also an ode to the very act of running, a sport the author believes poses a more direct challenge to patriarchy than any other since it is a solitary activity conducted in the public sphere. Chattopadhyay establishes this premise in the opening chapter, ‘The Bengali Woman’s Running Diary’, which explores the origins of her own journey as a hobby runner before the book moves on to the profiles of Mary D’Souza, Kamaljit Sandhu, P.T. Usha, Santhi Soundarajan, Pinki Pramanik, Dutee Chand, Lalita Babar, and Ila Mitra.

The author’s striking ability to put herself in the story of these remarkable athletes and to seamlessly juxtapose the personal and the universal gives the reader a layered and contextual lens. In the age of Zoom interviews and virtual interactions, Chattopadhyay’s work is testimony to the value of reporting from the ground and catching the athlete in their environs.

As she reminisces about a selfie she clicked at the beach in Kozhikode, where Usha trained, Chattopadhyay concludes that perhaps the most enduring legacy Usha left in her wake was ‘that no one turns to look when a woman runs because Usha had made it so natural’. Pramanik’s insistence on being interviewed at the Sealdah station in Kolkata, where she worked as a ticket checker, was equally poignant and insightful. “She [Pramanik] also wanted me to see her in a place where she is a figure of authority, in a blazer and trousers with the power to lock people up... If the public gaze had devoured her during her bizarre case, she was now unmistakably staring back at us all,” Chattopadhyay writes.

The athlete profiles are detailed and strewn with insightful anecdotes that read as a searing indictment of society and the media’s callous coverage of sensitive issues, such as gender identity. Barring the author’s tendency of factual repetition while reintroducing a certain event and the long-winded nature of the last three slightly tangential chapters, which seem to lean inordinately on the author’s political views, the book is a riveting anthology of Indian history and the place of women and sport in it.