You’d think that all a boxer needed to gear up for a big competition was a heavy bag (punching bag to most of us) or a sparring partner. But at DiTan Gymnasium, the training venue for boxing, secrecy surrounds every squad. And volunteers are on the ready to ward off any sport espionage. So, to find one’s way to the Indian squad through the maze of thick blue curtains, shut your eyes and follow the music.

Faint strains of Hindi music from a mobile phone provide the soundtrack to the five boxers who have stirred hopes for a medal this time round. Or the Bhiwani quartet plus one, as they are better known.

Coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu and trainer Heath Mathews are making the boxers work up a furious rhythm, rotating them between fast practice in the ring, battles with the heavy bag, and softer exercise to focus the eyes. And then suddenly, Akhil Kumar, the biggest hope of the five-some in the bantamweight category (54 kg) breaks into song: “Zindagi har kadam ek nayi jang hai, jeet jaayengey hum.”

Is this the team song? Oh no, they laugh later. Listen to our entire collection, says Vijender (75 kg), we just need energetic music. He and Akhil, Dinesh Kumar (81 kg) and Jitender Kumar (51 kg), hail from within kilometers of each other in the environs of Bhiwani. This clustering has won the area the name, Little-Cuba. It does not take much imagination to gauge what a medal would do to the area. As it is, says Vijender, “Jaise all-India mein cricket ka craze hai, vaise Bhiwani mein boxing ka hai (Like there is a craze for cricket in the rest of India, in Bhiwani there is a craze for boxing).”

... contd.