Minutes before Murlikant Petkar sat down to kill himself at the INHS Ashwini Naval hospital in 1967, a sweeper came rushing towards him and asked for Rs 10 for ‘matka’, a popular form of street gambling.
Petkar — who was about to gulp down 30 carefully-accumulated sleeping pills with alcohol — handed the sweeper Rs 100 instead. When the sweeper suggested that he, too, should bet on the same number, Petkar gave him another 100-rupee note but asked him to put it on a number whose last digit was one higher than the one that had appeared in the sweeper’s dream. The next morning, Petkar’s body would not only throw up the liquor and the pills but also feel the need to urinate for the first time since the fateful day in October 1965 when bullets pelted his body. On realizing that he had won a matka of Rs 40,000, Petkar’s bladder had woken up.
If not for this twist of fate, India would not have won its first Paralympics individual gold medal in 1972. “Destiny has always been both cruel and kind to me,” says the Pune-based 73-year-old over a video call from his living room—a museum of medals and trophies that inspire young patrons in his building in Khadki. Even as he watches the Tokyo Paralympics with a keen pair of eyes, one of which isn’t his own, the Padma Shri-winning swimmer has been revisiting his journey for international TV channels, his crutches by his side.
Petkar was a star army boxer nicknamed Chotu Tiger when he visited Kashmir in 1965. There, many who assumed the long wail of a siren signalling an unprovoked attack by the Pakistani Air Force to be the whistling call from the evening mess, died while waiting for tea. An army jeep ran over Petkar’s legs after he was thrown off by the impact of the bullets that hit his calves and thighs and kissed his right cheekbone and skull. “There’s still a bullet lodged in his spine,” reminds Petkar’s son Arjun, an Ordnance Factory employee who makes bullets for a living.
One of six underfed children of an impoverished freedom-fighter father from the wrestling belt of Sangli, Petkar mimes stirring a large cauldron while recalling the fresh thandai prepared at the local akhada in his village, Islampur. The drink had filled out his emaciated body even as he trained there under local wrestler Ganpat Khedkar. Petkar slaps his right upper arm to show the signal gesture that had elicited a massive roar during the infamous bout in which the 12-year-old went up against the son of the headman of a nearby village for a prize of Rs 5.
“Normally, the prizes were batashas and coconuts. But the stakes of this match were such that the villagers threw lots of coins on the cloth,” he recalls. Knives emerged after Petkar won the match that the crowd from Kanderi interpreted as a deliberate insult to their village. Khedkar fled the scene after thrusting the winners’ cash in Petkar’s pocket and plonked him on a truck that took him to Pune. A week later, Petkar found himself on a train to Bangalore soon after his Pune-based uncle had taken him to the local army recruitment centre .
In the army institute, Petkar trained hard and rose quickly in hockey. “But I was not selected for the Karnataka team as I was a Maratha boy,” recalls a bitter Petkar, who then swore off hockey and turned to boxing.
Petkar — who was about to gulp down 30 carefully-accumulated sleeping pills with alcohol — handed the sweeper Rs 100 instead. When the sweeper suggested that he, too, should bet on the same number, Petkar gave him another 100-rupee note but asked him to put it on a number whose last digit was one higher than the one that had appeared in the sweeper’s dream. The next morning, Petkar’s body would not only throw up the liquor and the pills but also feel the need to urinate for the first time since the fateful day in October 1965 when bullets pelted his body. On realizing that he had won a matka of Rs 40,000, Petkar’s bladder had woken up.
If not for this twist of fate, India would not have won its first Paralympics individual gold medal in 1972. “Destiny has always been both cruel and kind to me,” says the Pune-based 73-year-old over a video call from his living room—a museum of medals and trophies that inspire young patrons in his building in Khadki. Even as he watches the Tokyo Paralympics with a keen pair of eyes, one of which isn’t his own, the Padma Shri-winning swimmer has been revisiting his journey for international TV channels, his crutches by his side.
Petkar was a star army boxer nicknamed Chotu Tiger when he visited Kashmir in 1965. There, many who assumed the long wail of a siren signalling an unprovoked attack by the Pakistani Air Force to be the whistling call from the evening mess, died while waiting for tea. An army jeep ran over Petkar’s legs after he was thrown off by the impact of the bullets that hit his calves and thighs and kissed his right cheekbone and skull. “There’s still a bullet lodged in his spine,” reminds Petkar’s son Arjun, an Ordnance Factory employee who makes bullets for a living.
One of six underfed children of an impoverished freedom-fighter father from the wrestling belt of Sangli, Petkar mimes stirring a large cauldron while recalling the fresh thandai prepared at the local akhada in his village, Islampur. The drink had filled out his emaciated body even as he trained there under local wrestler Ganpat Khedkar. Petkar slaps his right upper arm to show the signal gesture that had elicited a massive roar during the infamous bout in which the 12-year-old went up against the son of the headman of a nearby village for a prize of Rs 5.
“Normally, the prizes were batashas and coconuts. But the stakes of this match were such that the villagers threw lots of coins on the cloth,” he recalls. Knives emerged after Petkar won the match that the crowd from Kanderi interpreted as a deliberate insult to their village. Khedkar fled the scene after thrusting the winners’ cash in Petkar’s pocket and plonked him on a truck that took him to Pune. A week later, Petkar found himself on a train to Bangalore soon after his Pune-based uncle had taken him to the local army recruitment centre .
In the army institute, Petkar trained hard and rose quickly in hockey. “But I was not selected for the Karnataka team as I was a Maratha boy,” recalls a bitter Petkar, who then swore off hockey and turned to boxing.
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