From living beside public restroom to Asian Games: Ashish’s tale

CHENNAI: Imagine living next to a restroom. The stench, the commotion, especially at night, the never ending sound of flowing water...it could be overbearing and at times, depressing. But when one doesn’t have a place to stay, this can turn into heaven. Ask Ashish, 24-year-old sepaktakraw player from New Delhi, he would narrate innumerable stories associated with the place where he was born and brought up. Now, sports has given him a new life.

The young player from Majnu-ka-tilla in North of New Delhi will make his Asian Games debut in Japan for India. A striker with the Indian team, Ashish is one of the many athletes for whom sports have become a lifeline. Not just to make a living, but also uplift his family. Born to a mason and a housewife in Khargapur, Madhya Pradesh, Ashish recalled life in his home at Majnu-ka-tilla, north of New Delhi. “First, my parents shifted to Chandigarh in search of a job, but couldn’t find any, and then they moved to Delhi before the year 2000. He constructed that public toilet and hence we got that two-room house to live in. I was born there,” he told this daily from Sonepat, where the Indian sepaktakraw team is training. As his father Jugal did not have a permanent job, the family faced a lot of issues. Such was the financial stress on the family that Ashish had to clean buses in the city to help his father even though he wanted to pursue sports. “I wanted to take up sports from the beginning. I began cleaning Volvo buses from the age of 14, and I did it for three years,” Ashish added.

That is when Kishore Bisht, physical education teacher from his school, changed his life. “When I cleaned buses and trains before and after school, my boss there encouraged me to take up sport, but I could not find a way out. One day, Kishore sir saw me with my dark circles and found out I didn’t sleep properly. He deposited `10,000 in my account and told me not to work,” he recalled.