[Poonam Mehra]
NEW DELHI, 23 May: Kicking and punching comes easy to Rupa Bayor, and her being a pathbreaking Taekwondo player is just one of the reasons.
After all, the youngster from Arunachal Pradesh has spent a better part of her life punching back after being punched hard by life.
The most recent demonstration of it was an unprecedented bronze medal in the 8th Asian Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Danang, Vietnam, earlier this month, less than a year after being forced to skip the Asian Games because of denial of visa by China.
“I was always a very unyielding and combative person. I could get into a fight at the drop of a hat,” the 23-year-old told PTI in an interview as she talked about what drove her to Taekwondo, given that Sippi village in Daporijo circle of Upper Subansiri district in Arunachal isn’t exactly the cradle of the sport.
The bespectacled youngster can’t be faulted though; she lost her father while still a toddler and, being the second among four siblings, she had to grow up quite quickly.
Part of the process included helping her mother in paddy farms as she toiled to ensure that the children got what was essential for some semblance of stability in life.
“I don’t have any memories of my father, although I remember his face clearly. I was just a toddler when he died. I remember that day,” she said.
“His body was lying on the floor, covered by a sheet,which had me believe that he was sleeping. I saw people coming in to offer prayers and condolences and that’s when it probably struck me that something had happened.
“I asked my mother what the matter was and why dad was so still. She told me that ‘your father has died’,” Rupa recalled.
That was the beginning of the rough and tumble that became her normal before her maternal uncle stepped in to offer her hope through sport.
“My mother is unlettered, and she never got to live her life. She is an orphan and was married off young to my father, who was much older than her; perhaps that’s why she ended up widowed so early,” she said.
“My uncle, who is a karate master, began training me as he felt that my aggression could be channeled into something productive. Eventually, I opted for Taekwondo as I felt it had more scope for me to grow as an athlete,” she recollected.
Yami Bayor, her mother, is in her early 40s and does not know that Rupa is now a globe-trotting sportsperson who has half a dozen international medals to her credit.
Rupa is also currently ranked 13th in the world, the highest for an Indian Poomsae competitor.
Poomsae is a non-combative form of Taekwondo in which the competitors perform sequence of techniques linked together into a pattern of moves like gymnastics routines, to be evaluated by a panel of judges. This format is currently a non-Olympic category which features in the Asian Games.
“If I tell my mom that I am in Mumbai or I am travelling for a tournament, she has no clue what I am talking about,” Rupa said, who still does not have a stable job to sustain herself.
“Even if I explain to her, she cannot process it. All she knows is that her daughter is doing something good in her life and is living in a city in Arunachal. She feels that I never really go out of Arunachal,” she laughed.
Rupa spends most of her time at the Indo-Korean Taekwondo Academy in Mumbai, her training base since 2021, when her coach Abhishek Dubey introduced her to the rigours of being an elite athlete.
“I took up Taekwondo in 2015 but began training seriously as an elite athlete only in 2021. In the beginning, Taekwondo was just time pass for me, but once I got a coach in Dubey sir, I began to take it more seriously,” said Rupa, who got her first international medal at an event in Croatia in 2022.
The Hangzhou Asian Games was to be a career breakthrough for her, but she could not even participate due to denial of visa.
“Not just me, every sportsperson from Arunachal faces this. I really hope that the Indian government can ensure that this issue is resolved for good because it was a major loss for me,” she said.
But like everything else in life, she has made peace with that heartbreak too and also the fact that her event is unlikely to make the Olympic cut.
“I will compete in the next Asian Games in Japan hopefully. One should always look ahead,” she added.
“As for the Olympics, I can’t change to combative Taekwondo now, it is very difficult. So I would stick to what I have mastered and do the best in that. I don’t want to just show up, I want to win medals,” she asserted.
Her resilient approach to life is also driven by a fellow Northeasterner’s achievements. Rupa idolises six-time world champion boxer MC Mary Kom, who hails from Manipur.
“The fact that she is from our region adds to the pride. She is a hero, to win medals even after having the responsibility of being a mother, it is phenomenal. I want to meet her some day,” she said. (PTI)
