There was once a lean little girl who used to hide in the bushes at the glint of a vehicle light and would squat there holding her breath till the vehicle left the area. She would then come out of the bushes and would start her daily running practice in the chilly mornings of a village called Rajakkad in Idukky. Decades later, India came to know her as Preeja Sreedharan, the country’s first-ever gold medal winner (10,000 metres) in athletics at this year’s Asian Games.
But even today, she sounds like the same little girl who once hid in the bushes for a ‘serious’ reason. “My mother had told me that child catchers came in vehicles. I did not want them to catch me and always hid myself at the grunt of an
engine,” says Sreedharan with an endearing naivety.
Even in college, she was loved more for her innate innocence than for her exploits on track. “I never had so many friends in college for I would be always away with college meets. But I knew that everybody liked me,” says the history graduate from Alphonsa College, Pala (1996-1999).
The athlete in Sreedharan is never tense during events. “That is something I have learned during college meets. At the start of every event, I would pray for a moment and then imagine that there is no one around me and I’m the lone contestant. That is how I ran to victory at the Asian Games also,” she says.
Due to her hectic sports schedule, she rarely attended classes “When exams were around, I would study from the notes my friends had prepared for me. The rest of the days were spent at various college events.”
Sreedharan who lost her father at a very young age owes a lot to her brother Pradeep, Ranendran, her school coach and Thankachan, her college team coach. “They’ve never made me feel the absence of my father. During the college meets Thankachan sir was always there for me. I could ask him anything I needed and he was just like a father to me,” she adds.
During a college meet held in Thiruvananthapuram (1999), Sreedharan got hurt in her knee. Her coach immediately took her to a specialty hospital in Ernakulam. The doctor suggested an immediate surgery on her ligament. But Thankachan would not let him do that since he knew that after the surgery, she would never run again. So he took her to a local ayurvedic practitioner who told her that she would be fine after daubing some oil on her knees. “Preeja trusted his words and she said that she was feeling better. In fact, the practitioner did not do anything magical. He was just playing with her psyche and it worked. That is Preeja for you. She is incredibly innocent and would not distrust anyone in this world,” says Thankachan.
Preeja Sreedharan won gold in 10,000m and silver in 5,000m at Guangzhou Asian Games. She holds the current national record in 10,000metres n
— aswin@expressbuzz.com