Bobby Singh, a winner of the World Bodybuilding Championship, is in Kochi to participate in the Mr India competition, organised by the Indian Body Building Federation.
The Manipur-based Bobby’s sporting career began as a gymnast, but he later took up bodybuilding. And he became a success at that. In 1995, he won both junior and senior Mr Manipur titles.
Manipur, which has produced many world-class sportspersons, like boxer Mary Kom, wushu player Wangkhem Sandhya Rani and weightlifter Renubala Chanu, has added yet another stalwart in the form of 2010 World Body Building Championship winner Bobby.
“The first Mr World championship title was won in 1988 by Premchand, and, after many years, I won the same title for India,” he says. “So I am happy. This is one of my biggest achievements in my career.”
Bobby also won the South Asian Bodybuilding Championship in 2011.Later, he won the Mr. India title in 2012 and, recently, he took the gold in the 24th edition of the Saraighat R G Baruah Memorial All India Classic Bodybuilding Championship, held at Guwahati.
A total of 30 participants, from places like Manipur, Assam, Delhi, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, took part. Bobby received a prize money of Rs.75,000, while Javed Ali Khan of the Indian Railways took the second place and Vijay Bahadur of Uttar Pradesh came third.
Bobby loves bodybuilding and believes that one can survive in this field only by working hard. He began working as a clerk in the railway department to earn money for his family, even as he kept his dream alive. He grew up in Imphal and comes from an underprivileged background. Bobby’s father died when he was young. Since then his mother was the only moral support he had.
“Bodybuilding is a tough job,” he says. “One has to sacrifice a lot, like a restricted diet, for maintaining one’s body.”
Before a competition, Bobby cuts down on spicy and oily foods as well as a liquid diet. He weighs around 80 kilograms and maintains it till the competition is over. The diet will fluctuate depending on the cutoff weight for each competition.
Prior to a competition, Bobby’s diet consists of six to seven egg whites for breakfast, rice, with boiled meat, for lunch, rice with boiled fish for dinner and protein drinks from time to time. “A few days before the competition, bodybuilders cut down on water and fruits so as to remove the water content in their body and to tighten the skin,” he says. “By God’s grace, till now, these rigorous diets has not had any negative effect on my body.”
Bobby has been maintaining his physique throughout the year and is regarded as a hardworking athlete. But as the saying goes, ‘Behind every successful man there is a woman’. In Bobby’s case, it is his wife who has been a pillar of support. “Without her, I would not have been able to do this well,” says Bobby. The bodybuilder has two sons. “Both are very young but do not seem interested in bodybuilding,” he says, with a smile.
