The Bhiwani Boxing Club sent four boxers to the Beijing Olympics, one of whom has won a bronze. Our correspondent goes looking for the club that has given India its star pugilists, Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar and Vijender Singh. And finds two rooms, a shed and lots of determination
THEY call it Naya Bazaar and that makes you wonder. Just when was the last time Bhiwani changed. Among the unruffled shopkeepers tracking the day's passage with Bollywood beats on radio, the commodity shortest in supply is clues on direction. Visitors, it seems then, must be rationed too. The term ‘boxing club’ invites puzzled glances and the girls at the local college giggle shyly before looking away and hopping onto their bicycles. There are just a few young cricket players at the local stadium and also fortunately a flicker of comprehension: “You must mean the hostel.”

The Sports Authority of India hostel literally lurks off the main road and behind a couple of turns through narrow lanes that look certain dead-ends. The building has an insipid marble nameplate, ‘Kirorimal Chhatrawas, 1954’. It is also curiously empty, but the friendly guard waves you on, and soon there is the warden.
“This is where they all stay, our SAI trainees. Unfortunately, we’ve been renovating for the past couple of days, and so all the boys are on a few days’ holiday,” says Brish Bhan, the warden.
It can’t be what you’re looking for. And so, finally, you get hold of an address. Bhiwani in Haryana has outgrown itself and farmland is giving way to residential sectors. So the lanes are wider now and there are identical houses in Sector 13, where help comes again from a couple of schoolboys who stop in their tracks to give directions. They could have added a piece of advice: “Don’t look for the obvious.”
Because when you’re done peering at nameplates and seeking out advertising hoardings or banners in futility, a group of men sitting under the shade of a tree insists you’re on the right track. “It’s the next one on the left,” they say. “Just go across this pool of water.”

... contd.