Print Email to Friend| From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 31, Dated 04 Aug 2012

CULTURE & SOCIETY   FARMAN BASHA

Lifting the world on his shoulders

Weightlifter Farman Basha contracted polio when he was two. Preparing for the London Paralympics, he tells Nishita Jha that winning a medal is not enough

Tower of strength Farman Basha Photo: Getty Images

FARMAN BASHA is one of the few fathers in the world who does not spend sleepless nights thinking about his 11-year-old child’s future. From the moment his son was born “perfect”, or without disability, Basha says he could sleep easy. “The only people I worry about now are others like me. The able-bodied live in a secure world,” he smiles.

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That there is a lack of resentment in this smile is not surprising. Born in a small flat in Bengaluru, to an IT technician and his homemaker wife, Basha was the seventh of 12 siblings. As the only working member with a regular income, his father was allowed a hobby (gardening), but the children and their mother spent every moment of their spare time sewing bags and performing odd jobs to make ends meet. Basha believes he owes his easygoing nature to the fact that even at the worst of times, his parents never let their children feel like raising them was a burden — “my mother was extremely religious. She would wake up at the crack of dawn for namaaz even if we had only slept for an hour. She told us we were her gifts from God. Even when I contracted polio when I was two, she would tell me, ‘This is Allah’s way of testing our faith. We must not disappoint him.’”

At 38, Basha has been winning gold medals for weightlifting at the National Games for the past seven years. Weighing 48 kg, he lifts 164 kg, over three times his body weight, more than any able-bodied lifter in his weight class. While he claims to be far less devout than his mother, he admits that her words gave him a prism through which to view his disability — life was going to be a challenge, one that he must constantly strive to defeat. “Till the age of 12, I was unable to get an operation to attach calipers to my legs. I dragged myself on my hands to get around. Someone or the other would drop by the house to take me to school. I got by. I didn’t spend too much time thinking about why this had happened to me — the important thing was to get as much fun out of a day as possible,” he muses. Through his childhood Basha played pitthhoo, cricket, climbed trees, wrestled raucously with his huge family, did everything that his brothers and sisters did. “Everyone is equally irritating or fun in a family of that size, who was I to feel special?” he grins.

As each of his elder siblings found jobs, began to marry and leave the house, Basha decided to put himself through college while running a PCO booth for the handicapped. He earned himself a diploma in electronics from a polytechnic institute, joined a gym — and like all the young men in his class, developed a passion for body-building. The fact that he was the only one on a wheelchair at the gym never bothered Basha. “Whatever they did standing up, I would do sitting down,” he explains. It was around this time that two simultaneous events changed Basha’s life — he met the love of his life, a Christian athlete called Antonita, and entered a bodybuilding competition for the first time.

“I had a better upper body than most of the men participating, but since I was differently abled, they decided to call my performance a ‘demo’ and refused to award me the medal and the cash prize that I deserved,” he says. The smile is intact, but this time it is belied by the fact that he never attended a body-building competition again. Impressed with his grit, Antonita began to find excuses to speak to him at the gym every day — within a year, the two had decided to marry. “Her mother was as orthodox as mine. So I knew the only way to win the war was to soften up her father,” he says, looking over his shoulder to make sure that his wife is out of earshot. “ I think personally that her father was more worried about how I was going to support her, than which God I prayed to,” he laughs.

While able-bodied athletes who are less educated and less qualified than him have no trouble finding corporate placements, Basha is discomfited by the fact that his family relies solely on Antonita’s earnings. A series of hard-won victories — Basha has six National records to his credit, along with five international medals — are still not enough because medals for para-athletes rarely come with cash prizes from the Indian government. Since he won his first silver medal in 1998, in every interview that he has given, Basha has requested readers and audiences to find him a job. While one realty developer, Rizwan, came forth a couple of years ago and continues to pay Basha Rs 8,000 every month so that he can afford to pay for his gym and training, Basha’s dream remains unfulfilled. As he leaves on his crutches to attend a call from an old neighbour who wants to wish him luck for the Paralympics, Basha turns a brief moment to mention that he spent a year as an apprentice with Bharat Electronics, in case one knows of any job openings where he could apply. Despite the fact that he is India’s strongest contender to win the weightlifting bronze at the Paralympics this year, the only thing giving Farman Basha sleepless nights is that until he does not bring home a regular pay cheque, he is not his father’s son.

Nishita Jha is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.
nishita@tehelka.com