Sangram Singh, the wrestler-reality-TV star sips on soda water at the poolside of The Metropolitan Hotel. We’re at a fashion event, and people are drinking alcohol, but he feels no social pressure. “If you are fit and healthy then you epitomise fashion. New trends emerge every now and then in fashion but fitness will never go out of fashion,” he says. He’s happy to skip party food and eat khichri with ghee from his village Madina in Rohtak.
What brings out his motivational-speaker side is the fact that his mother never gave up on his legs weakened by rheumatoid arthritis, massaging them daily with mustard oil. His brother, a state-level wrestler pushed him into the dangal. “I worked three times harder than a regular person,” he says.
During his wrestling career, he bought the rights to make a movie on K. D. Jadhav, who won a bronze for wrestling way back in 1952, at the Helsinki Olympics. Shyam Bengal is directing the movie, for which Sangram lost 18 kg. He also hopes that someday, a biopic will be made on his life.
“Eat less than your appetite and exercise three times more than you would normally,” he says. “Stay jovial and keep smiling. This is my mantra of happiness and I want everyone to incorporate this in their daily routine,” he says, after advising me to switch to vegetarianism and see the changes in my body.
Madhur Tankha
