Laurels, Finally Rested

He is 27 years old, six feet tall, weighs 72 kg; he’s the recipient of India’s fourth highest civilian award, Padmashri; and his annual income is pegged around Rs 3.5 crore. He’s married to a software engineer who worked in a foreign mission in Delhi. Fairy tales lie between book covers, with rare exceptions, like Vij­ender Singh, the son of a bus driver in Har­yana Roadways. Or so it was till last month, when a series of selective leaks by Punjab Police linked him to a heroin smu­ggling racket (see box) and threatened to undo his iconic status. As if on cue, headlines smirked: ‘From hero to heroin’.

It must have been painful for the boy from Bhiwani, whose wedding last year was attended by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and the BJP’s Shahnawaz Hussain.

Vijender’s “mass appeal, clean image and apo­litical affiliations” had prompted the Election Commission to draft him as a brand ambassador for the Haryana ele­ction in 2011. Roped in to endorse products for Nike, Nestle and others, Vijender has also been walking the ramp, attending reality shows and appearing at ritzy product launches.

Did success turn Vijender’s head? Is it another instance of a small-town boy in free-fall from the rarefied heights of success? The boxer has been spending more time in Mumbai in the past few years than on training at the National Institute of Sports, Patiala. He has artlessly revealed his fascination for Bolly­wood and its nightlife, even admitted to a desire to act. His playboy’s lifestyle caused the Haryana CM to tick him off. “Tu ye tour lagane band kar de (You better  stop this footloose life),” Bhupinder Singh Hooda had said. Vijender remained unfazed. “He should tell me which tours,” he retorted later.

Described as ‘honest, down-to-earth and very funny’, the advertising world embraced him as a face of new India (after all, boxing has a rough, manly glamour that cricket lacks). His clean good looks and “cute one-liners” wowed TV producers. And Vijender’s humility and ‘responsible nature’ floored the likes of Akshay Kumar and Bipasha Basu. Jiv­ing through filmdom’s top bashes and partying with Shahrukh Khan, being himself at MTV Roadies, sitting for photoshoots and smiling at interviews, all framed within an endless spin of flights between metros—life for Vijender has been a fast, furious whirl.

A Mike Tyson and Mohammed Ali fan, Vijender knows the Rocky mov­ies backwards from the last frame, and says his life’s desire is to meet Sylvester Stallone. So deep is the influence that his hooks and upper cuts in the ring have been compared with that of Stallone’s Rocky.

Conscious of his fame, Vij­ender has taken blank calls and propositions from women in his stride. He has also acquired a taste for good cars: the Ford Endeavour and Hyundai Verna are passe; he is eyeing an Audi and a bmw. Another ambition—a desire to reprise Sha­hrukh’s role in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

Boxing for the Haryana boy was initially a passport to a government job. Vij­­ender accompanied elder brother Manoj to the boxing ring and discovered that he was both tall and fast enough on his feet to beat older boys. Manoj  got into the army by dint of his boxing skills. Vijender hoped as much,  possibly for a Havaldar’s rank. But it was Indian Rai­lways which recruited him, posting him at Jaipur as a Head TT. He was not yet 20.

Vijender found himself in the national arclight when picked for the internati­onal event that matters most—the Oly­mpics. He lost in the first round at Athens in 2004. A period of struggle ensued, followed by a miraculous selection for the Beijing Olympics. In China, he bec­ame the only Indian boxer to win an Oly­mpic medal—a bronze. Of the boxers in Beijing whom India applauded, Vijender’s star shone the brightest.

At the age of 14 he was “reserved, lanky and eager to learn”, recalled Vijender’s coach at the Bhiwani Boxing Club, Jag­dish Singh. “Zyada uchhal-kood nahin karta hai (he does not lose his cool),” he says of his pupil. In Beijing, Vijender came from behind to beat his opponent, a Cuban boxer. His performance was hai­led as being mature, critics admired his doggedness. But although ranked as World No. 1 for some time, the middleweight boxer has seldom won a medal since. Only once Vijender had let his guard down and cried out: “Why is it only bronze, bronze and bronze for me?”

Vijender does a lot of skipping so that he can “dance like a butterfly” and hates running. Meditation, yoga, pumping iron, sparring and a mean game of football is part of his fitness regime.

Genial and well-behaved, Vijender has many admirers. And they are convinced he has been framed and will prove his innocence. Indeed, there is little hard evidence against him so far. The following weeks will show how much steel he has left to fight back after trailing by several points.