Watch 25-year-old Komal Patil practice Mallakhamb, a demanding traditional martial art performed with a fixed stick, and she looks effortless. With 75 percent impaired vision, she can barely see the outline of the stick in front of her, yet her movements are powerful and sure. She climbs eight feet in three swift movements and sits comfortably at the top, folds her legs, smiles and strikes a pose. She tricks onlookers into thinking she is being held up by an invisible chair, when in fact it is only her own strength and dexterity that is holding her up.
The Mumbai-based Mallakhamb team, coached by Premium Uday Deshpande (left in a suit), performed at India House during the Paris Olympics on Saturday, July 27. (indianolympichouse/Instagram)
Komal is part of a team of six athletes selected to perform at the India House at the Paris Olympics on Saturday night. Four of the six team members — Ajay Lalwani (27), Venkatesh Mandadi (26), Anjali Thapar (25) and Komal Patil (25) — are visually impaired. In addition, the team also has two underage athletes — Riddhi Dalvi (13) and Samarth Patil (12). All six have been training for many years under Padma Shree awardee Uday Deshpande and fellow coach Neeta Tatke.
Coach Uday Deshpande, 71, who first encountered Mallakhamb at the age of three, has seen the sport emerge on the national and global stage. “When I became general secretary of the Indian Mallakhamb Federation in 1987, there were only four state-level associations affiliated to the federation (the states were Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh). But by the time I retired as general secretary in 2009, 33 state associations were registered and affiliated to the national federation,” he said.
Mallakhamb as a sport is not an Olympic event. However, getting the opportunity to perform at India House is a major achievement. India House was conceptualized by the Reliance Foundation in partnership with the Indian Olympic Association. The India House pavilion will essentially act as a centre to showcase Indian art, culture, tradition and sports at the Paris Olympics.
The opportunity to perform at India House will catapult this traditional Indian sport onto the world stage. “The President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, visited India and we got the opportunity to perform in front of him. After seeing the demonstration, they decided to perform Mallakhamb at India House at the Paris Olympics,” Deshpande explained.
Mallakhamb performers Anjali Thapar and Komal Patil gather in a circle during practice, with Uday Deshpande in the background (left) (Photo by Kiran Mehta)
Watching the performance, it’s easy to see why this sport was chosen to be showcased in Paris. It’s visually stunning and a perfect blend of art, dance and gymnastics. Watching Anjali Thapar, there is fluidity, grace and strength in every movement. She has mastered Dwi Pada Sirshasana (a yoga pose with feet behind the head). Anjali performs this asana in the air, supporting her entire body weight with just a cotton rope. Venkatesh Mandadi swiftly scales the rope, balances in an inverted pose, does namaskarams and smiles. You can see his calf muscles flex as he holds the pose in the air using only his legs and looks effortless for minutes. Ajay Lalwani performs Padmasana in the air, with one arm stretched out and wrapped around the rope to support his entire body weight. It’s as if he’s floating several feet off the ground, aiming for the clouds.
The students are dedicated to sports and never miss a day of training. Komal says matter-of-factly, “I take the train from my home in Boisar to Dadar (where the Vyayam temple is located) every day.” When I ask her how long it takes, she answers without complaint, “Nearly two hours each way.” Venkatesh also commutes from Thane, just outside the city. Ajay has a job but prioritizes training. Like her teammates, Anjali commutes to the training centre alone by public transport.
With the exception of Ajay, who took part in a sporting event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, none of the players have been abroad before. “I’m excited but also a little nervous,” said Komal. Anjali, who grew up in a family that encouraged and excelled in sports, said, “My elder brothers have also competed in various sports, but as of now, I am the first in my family to go abroad for a sporting event.”
“I only applied for my passport last year and was hoping that I would get a chance to dance Mallakhamb abroad soon,” said a visibly excited Venkatesh, a week before leaving for Paris, and the rest of the team were equally excited. All the performers are hopeful that Mallakhamb will one day be recognised and compete against other dancers on the global sporting stage in the near future.
Mallakhamb performers showcase teamwork and camaraderie (Kiran Mehta)
The two youngest team members (who can see) also perform impressive tricks. Riddhi Dalvi hangs upside down from a wooden pole and smiles for the camera. He quickly climbs up and sits comfortably on the top of a thin pole. Samarth Patil wraps his ankles around the pole without using his hands. He then bends in a flash to make various shapes, including semicircles and teardrops, all the while remaining suspended in the air. They display their teamwork and friendship as there are several group performances where one team member has to support the other. For example, Samarth Patil lies still as if he were a plank of wood; however, his body is suspended vertically in the air. His plank-like position serves as support for Venkatesh, who uses Samarth’s abdomen as a base to bend into a yoga pose several feet above the ground.
Watching them perform, it’s clear that the sport is full-body and intense, combining strength, flexibility, endurance and weight training all in one sport. “It also requires concentration, which in turn helps train the mind,” says Deshpande. Coach Tatke was a student of Deshpande’s first Mallakhamb batch. In addition to being a Mallakhamb trainer, she is also a postgraduate student in psychology and a professor of psychology at a leading university in Mumbai. Not surprisingly, Tatke’s doctoral thesis centred around the psychological benefits of Mallakhamb. She found that the sport helps with decision-making, concentration, ability to overcome fear, builds self-confidence and promotes physical and mental health.
Unlike many other sports, Mallakhamb also has the advantage of requiring very little equipment. All performers need is a teak stick, a cotton rope, and a padded landing mat to cushion their fall. No assistive technology or equipment modifications have been made for the visually impaired. The Shree Samat Vyam Mandir in Shivaji Park, where the players train, is a basic training facility with the equipment mentioned above in a small room, and just beyond the walled building is an open area that is also used to train athletes. “Fees start at Rs 30 a month,” explains coach Tatke, making it easy to take up the sport. Despite being a modest training ground, Vyam Mandir has seen many success stories in various sports, and the walls are adorned with transparent cabinets filled with trophies.
Coach Deshpande began training visually impaired athletes in 1992 after a chance encounter. “While I was involved with the Vyam Shala, Kamla Mehta Dadar School (a school for the blind) approached me seeking my input on refurbishing their physical training equipment. I visited the school and offered to train the students there,” he says. His training at Kamla Mehta School created a chain reaction; word spread and soon Deshpande was being recruited to teach at various schools for the visually impaired in Mumbai.
Deshpande and Tatke both agree that their students have made them better teachers. “It has helped me become a better trainer as I have learnt how to give clearer and more precise instructions to the visually impaired,” Tatke says. She admits that when working with sighted students, she relied on hand gestures to make up for the lack of verbal cues. “For example, I used to say, ‘Pull up that hand,’ but now I give more precise instructions like, ‘Pull up your left foot,’ or ‘Tie your right ankle around the rope,'” Tatke adds. This allows the coaches to hone their skills by thinking more deeply about the exact muscle activations in each movement.