On 16 August 1991, Mary’s village was in the news for the wrong reason. A nine-year-old Mary was in church along with almost everyone for the Sunday service. Just as the service ended, there was a resounding crash. Soon, policemen and other officials arrived in numerous vehicles to tiny Kangathei. An Indian Airlines Boeing aeroplane from Calcutta had crashed into the nearby Thangjing Ching mountain range because of bad weather, and there were no survivors!
Kangathei was the designated base camp for rescue operations, and locals, including Mary’s father, were hired to recover the bodies. This was the first time Mary had seen an aeroplane, but the thrill was dimmed by the horror of the dead bodies recovered from the crash and kept in the village.
Mary’s first school was the Loktak Christian Model High School, which was run by a Presbyterian mission in Moirang. It was one of the best schools in Moirang, and Mary’s father had set aside small sums of money from his meagre earnings so that he could enrol his eldest daughter in a good school. What pride he felt when Mary was admitted to this school!
Sometimes, Mary’s father could not pay the school fees on time, and this embarrassed the children greatly as they were not allowed to enter the class or sit for examinations if their school fees remained unpaid. Mary’s mother tried her best to save them from these embarrassing experiences.
From an early age, Mary realised that their family was hard for money. She was an understanding child who never demanded anything from her parents. Even during Christmas, which was the only time the children got new clothes to wear, Mary always accepted what was given to her without creating any fuss. Her only preference was boyish clothes like jeans, T-shirts, and shorts.
In the Kom society in those days, boys were given preference over girls when it came to education while the girls were married off early. But Mary’s father held different views and wanted his daughter to study and make a mark rather than sit at home waiting to be married off. It was Mary’s father’s farsightedness that made her an independent spirit.
Mary had a busy life apart from her studies, as she was her father’s right-hand woman. Apart from ploughing the fields, her other duties in the fields included handling heavy farming tools, carrying bundles of rice saplings for planting, and later, carrying heavy sacks of rice. There would be leeches in the wet rice fields, and occasionally water snakes too. Mary would pull off the leeches with her bare hands, or knock out the snakes. She used this experience many years later at a boxing camp when her friends ran away on spotting a snake but Mary was not scared.
Not all the children in the village worked as hard as Mary and her siblings. Most of Mary’s friends spent their free time playing, eating, or sleeping. But Mary’s father had taught his children to work hard from an early age. With time, Mary could do jobs that even bigger and stronger boys struggled with. For example, ploughing the fields demanded great strength and skill as the bullocks were not easy to manage. When Mary drove the animals in the field with ease, the menfolk of the village would stand and gape in amazement.
Mary would also carry home the straw left over after harvesting, which would be stored as cattle feed. She had to fetch water from a long distance as there was no potable water in the village. She also accompanied her father up the hills to collect firewood and to the lake to fish.
Her mother needed Mary’s help too in cooking, washing, gardening, cleaning the house, and several other odd jobs! Neither Mary nor her siblings ever complained about anything. There was simply no time for all that. Their parents toiled harder than anybody else they had seen and also made endless sacrifices.
All the hard work would prove beneficial to Mary when she would begin her boxing career. Her strength and stamina helped her to battle bigger and more powerful opponents in the ring.
In his youth, Mary’s father had been the village wrestling champion. He gave up wrestling to support his family. Mary’s mother was always working. She wove shawls that she sold to pay for her children’s school fees. All the vegetables came from her kitchen garden, and the leftovers were sold in the market. So, even though Mary’s family was poor, they never ate poorly.
Mary’s father was also an expert fisherman. Sometimes, he left home at the crack of dawn to go fishing and hunting. Mary’s mother packed the day’s food for him. When he returned only after dark, the children crowded around him excitedly, eager to see what he had brought back. He was especially good at catching eels, which he spread out for display in the kitchen. The big eels were exchanged for rice as they fetched a good price. This caused the innocent children much sadness as they wondered why the big fish were always sent away while they could eat only the little ones.
Excerpted with permission from The Incredible Life of Mary Kom: The Queen of Boxing, Swayam Ganguly, Talking Cub.
