Misti Karmakar, 16, was the first from her family to take a flight. She made the cut for the Indian team after achieving her personal best throw of 45.02m in the National Youth Athletics Championships in Patna last month.
When Karmakar landed in Saudi Arabia for the Asian U-18 Athletics Championships, she made a quick call to her father.
“I could never imagine that she would travel outside India. I know nothing about sports and I don’t have the resources to fund her training. But seeing her drive to excel in sports, I knew she would progress. With my meagre source of income, I somehow run my family. I feel bad that I am not able to support her well enough,” Karmakar told HT over phone from Malda.
Karmakar would wake up at 03:30am to cycle 4km to athletics academy, situated on the outskirts of Malda in Bengal, and return to attend school and repeat the same drill in the evening.
Her father, a hawker at the Malda Railway station, earned INR 400 by selling homemade food at the station on the best day. It was not enough to support a family of six, including his three children.
On Thursday, she will compete in the javelin throw event. The teenager took up the sport on the insistence of a former University level sprinter, Asit Pal, who runs his own academy.
“She has been training for four years. She has not missed a single training session, even on winter mornings, when we used to tell her to skip training. I supported her in whatever way I could. You need good quality shoes, diet that is beyond my capacity.”
“She travels with her coach. I have never been able to travel or bring her back from training because that would mean missing a day’s earning,” Karmakar says.
When she returns from Saudi Arabia; there would be a huge celebration at home.
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