Kayaker Rajina Kiro of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands won a gold medal at the National Games on Monday, continuing a remarkable career.
Kiro, 37, a sub-inspector with Andaman and Nicobar Police, followed up the gold in the women’s 500m K1 (single seat kayak) race at the Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad with a bronze alongside Sandhya Kispotta in the women’s 500m K2 (double seat kayak) race later in the day. Kiro has another race, the K1 1000m, on Tuesday and she goes in as the favourite.
It seems like a good medal haul, but not if you are Kiro. The 37-year-old, a sub-inspector with Andaman and Nicobar Police, is competing in her fourth National Games and Monday’s gold medal is her ninth of the colour overall. She was the standout performer at the 2015 National Games in Kerala, where she won five gold medals. Her silver and bronze haul at National Games across the four editions swell the medal tally to 14. “I think I must have won at least 100 medals at the national level. I had to make a cabinet in my house just for them,” Kiro laughs.
Even Kiro’s somewhat diminished haul is impressive when her preparation is taken into account. The National Games in Ahmedabad is only her second competition since the National Championships in early 2020. The lockdown to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus resulted in the only kayaking boathouse in the Andamans shutting down. It reopened in July this year. This meant Kiro won her gold medal in Ahmedabad with only about two months of training on a boat. There are other challenges too. The islands have few kayaks and not many coaches. These limitations are of course not unique to the Andamans.
Then, of course, there are the crocodiles. A whole lot of them. The creek leading from the SAI (Sports Authority of India) boathouse in Port Blair’s Sippy Ghat to the Indian Ocean, is a prime crocodile habitat. This is where Kiro trains.
“We have about 3km from Sippy Ghat to the ocean. If we plan our circuit well, we can do 15-20km of training there. But that route is full of saltwater crocodiles. We see them all the time. In the low tide, we see them lying in the mud or the rocks, taking in the sun,” Kiro says. As if anticipating the next question she adds, “We haven’t had a problem so far.”
A crocodile seen slipping into the water during one of Kiro’s training sessions. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Training alongside crocodiles comes with its own unique challenge. It’s forbidden to train alone. Srimati Bishnoi, chief coach of the Andamans kayaking team, says, “The priority is safety. We never get on the water unless we are in a group. And even then, we always follow behind on a safety boat which is motor powered. The crocodiles don’t like the sound of motors.”
While the saltwater crocodiles, adult males often reaching over six metres in length, look frightening as they sit with their jaws open on the sand banks, the problem, as Bishnoi and Kiro share, is they are not visible once in the black water. “They usually stare at us from a distance. That’s not an issue. But once they hear the sound of a motor boat, they get disturbed and go into the water where we are kayaking,” says Kiro. “That’s when you don’t know where they’ve gone. They are somewhere below, but you don’t know where.”
Kiro, Bishnoi and the other kayakers have learned to make light of their situation. “We joke about it. When they go under the water, we say, ‘Stay where you are, don’t suddenly come up in front of us,’” says Kiro.
That doesn’t always work. “ Magar hai. Jo karna hai usey, woh karega (It’s a crocodile. It’s going to do what it wants),” says Kiro. “The closest they have come up to us is about two or three metres. When the water tide is low, it’s easier to see them. When we start our sprint work, they lift their head above the water and stare at us. But the moment our paddle starts splashing in the water, they go underneath,” she says.
The team hasn’t been troubled too often by the giant reptiles. Bishnoi says, “Sometimes, when they get a little too intrusive, we call the wildlife department. They either trap the problem animals (large males can be particularly territorial) or spread a chemical in the water which acts as a repellent to crocodiles in the area.”
For the most part, the kayakers and the crocodiles maintain truce. While the potential presence of an underwater predator isn’t very comforting, Kiro and her compatriots have come to terms with it and even the possibility of going into the water themselves. “It’s kayaking. You are going to fall into the water at some point, especially if you are starting. Usually, when you fall in the water, we are in a group and the safety boat is right behind so there isn’t much to worry about. The problem comes when we are training in the sprints. That’s when we can’t be in a group. So, usually, we train sprints in areas where we know it’s unlikely to find crocodiles,” says Kiro. When Kiro started training that used to be most of the Andamans.
“I was 13 years old when I started training as a kayaker. Back then, we could paddle into the open ocean by ourself. It wasn’t an issue at all,” recalls Kiro. Things changed, she says, after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. “After that, there have been more crocodiles in the water,” she says.
Experts believe the tsunami destroyed a lot of crocodile habitats in South Asia, forcing the reptiles into surviving mangrove islands and creeks like the one Kiro trains in. Another theory is the explosion of the tourism industry in the islands and mushrooming restaurants, which discard refuse that attract the animals looking for food. Between 2014 and 2018, 15 crocodile attacks on humans were recorded in the Andaman Islands.
Despite the danger, Kiro has never wavered from her kayaking career, and is one of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ most decorated athletes. She has been a part of three Asian Games teams and won a bronze at the Asian Championships in Tehran in 2009.
Bishnoi, who has participated in Asian Games twice, wishes her athletes had it a bit easier. “I’ve worked as the national coach with the Indian team in Alleppey in the Kerala backwaters. It’s so much easier to train there. You can just get on a boat and start training outside your house if you have to. You don’t have to worry about what might be swimming underneath you and watching you.”
Kiro, however, has no complaints. “My life has changed for the better because of kayaking. I am indebted to the sport because without it who would know a girl like me. Girls like me, growing up in a far-off part of India, have no identity of our own. It is only because of this sport that I got an identity, a name, a job and facilities. My department also supports me a lot. They encourage me to participate in competitions and make the nation proud,” she says.
Kiro has no plans to quit. “I was already 30 years old (at the 2015 National games). I thought about quitting, but I am so attached to it that I can’t. Everyone encourages me. They still tell me I can keep winning. I want to compete until the next National Games. Then I’ll think about my future.”
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