For children: Boxer Mary Kom’s journey from a childhood of hardships to an Olympic medal

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...

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