Blood, Sweat & Smiles- The Story Of India’s Adventure Women

The sun shone bright and high, melting the tar road that stretched ahead like an ominous, winding snake. With mercury topping the 40-degrees mark, the strong sinewy legs kept going, moving in the rhythmic pace set out for them a few hours ago. Having already completed a 10-kilometer swim, and a 420-kilometer bike ride, only the final 10 kilometers of the 84.4-kilometer run stood in the way of glory. As the sun dipped on the horizon, the sinewy but now-exhausted legs crossed the finish line. Bathed in the orange afterglow, Anuradha Vaidyanathan threw her head back and smiled. She had just become the first Asian to complete one of the world’s toughest endurance races-The Ultraman Canada.

Nine days later, a short story made its way to one of the inner pages of ‘The Hindu’- the only Indian newspaper that covered Anu’s story before it was promptly forgotten.

The truth of the matter is, when you picture an adrenaline-pumping, muscle-throbbing sporting scenario, you would most likely think of testosterone-fueled men engaged in the activity. It’s what a majority of us have construed about the world and rarely, if at all, do women get a rightful position of their own in the world of sports.

However, there is an interesting trend emerging in India today. While gender equality in the country is dismally low (In 2015, UNDP ranked India 131st out of 188 countries in the gender equality index), there is a growing participation of women in the field of endurance and adventure sports. Men and women are infact, participating in these activities on an equal footing and in many cases like Anuradha Vaidyanathan’s, Indian women have surpassed men through their accomplishments- both, on the domestic and international circuits.

So what are adventure or endurance sports anyway? And how does a developing country like India feature in this field?

Prasad Purandare, the man behind India’s first and most prestigious adventure race- Enduro3 says, “All kinds of land, air and water sports that push your physical and mental limits and which usually involve individual effort are considered to be adventure sports. Right from trekking, distance running and cycling to paragliding, scuba diving and surfing, there are many different sports associated with adventure or endurance sports.” According to Purandare, these sports are gaining ground in the country due to several factors like increasing awareness about health and fitness, a growing middle-class with disposable income and time, and the creation of opportunities to train with like-minded people. And this is also what has prompted the increasing numbers of women participants in outdoor sports- a trend that the Indian society is still adjusting to.

Women athletes challenge traditional gender norms

“Be the pig that flew over the moon. Do the impossible.”

It’s 5 am and in a conservative and fairly residential part of Pune city, 40-year-old Shilpa Phadke can be seen running in her shorts and Nike t-shirt, clenching a water bottle in her hands. For the last three months, Shilpa has been training rigorously for her next triathlon, waking up at 4 am for her run so she can avoid the traffic and the commotion. By the time her 20-kilometer-run is over, it is a few minutes past 7 am, and the streets are buzzing with activity. The regulars on the road at that hour smile and wave at Shilpa. They have finally gotten over their initial shock of seeing a woman - that too in shorts - running on the streets before daybreak. With time, the locals in the area have become accustomed to encountering this woman, who is committed to her sport. In fact, they now beam with pride every time they see her photo in the newspaper, applauding her latest triumph in a marathon or a cycling competition.

Shilpa is one of the few women who persisted with her sport despite discouragement from society. But most aspirants end up burying their ambitions because they are unable to put up with the stigma attached to women playing outdoor sports.

For women in India, pursuing sports doesn’t come easy especially because it is considered a male bastion. In one of her interviews, Anuradha Vaidyanathan highlights the kind of flak she faced: “I faced a lot of hurdles. There have been several issues that perhaps emanated from the notion that sports are masculine. I had coaches telling me to get married. They thought the right place for a woman is to get married and have a family. You cannot remove the fact that you have to navigate your circumstances to deal with notions of masculinity in India.”

Anu is not the only one who finds this a problem. Almost every sportswoman - professional or amateur - faces this kind of social attitudes.

In Shilpa Phadke’s case, social attitudes did ease over time but her experiences do point toward the subtle barriers that women have to overcome in their pursuit of any sport. Shilpa is now a well-known endurance athlete having won multiple marathons and cycling competitions across the country. She says, “Women are generally treated with kid gloves. People show surprise at the fact that a woman is taking part in distance runs or adventure events. Some people admire it but most of the times even they wonder why it is necessary for any woman to compete and behave like men!”

Several studies have been conducted across the world to understand why women participation is so low in sports and all, including those by the UN Women and Women’s Sports Foundation, point to similar reasons. These studies

cite issues like lack of time from household duties, lack of encouragement and support from family and peers, lack of mentors and role models, economic dependency, safety and hygiene that hamper women from taking up sports at all ages.

But then there are many women, like Anu and Shilpa, who break stereotypes and challenge prevalent gender norms through their very existence in the sport. These women end up renegotiating concepts of masculinity and femininity through their accomplishments and in the process, raise awareness about gender equality.

For Phadke, this is exactly what happened: “Over time they [fellow male athletes] get used to having women like me in training groups. Strangers are either overly nice or show chauvinism, but for most of the people who have seen you in your element, gender ceases to exist. In fact many of these friends of mine have gone ahead and motivated their wives or other female friends to take up some sport as well!”

Building Self Confidence and Leadership

“Let her swim, climb mountain peaks, pilot airplanes, battle against the elements, take risks, go out for adventure, and, she will not feel before the world…timidity.”

Simone de Beauvoir, ‘The Second Sex’.

Archana Sardana had a typical provincial childhood in the Kashmir valley in India. With conservative, middle-class parents, she was taught the importance of education just as much as the fact that as a girl she should be submissive and demure. When Archana’s husband encouraged her to participate in an adventure camp days after their marriage, she was resistant to the idea. Not sure if she was capable of even walking a few kilometers, let alone climb a mountain, Archana simply didn’t think she had it in her. After a little more persuasion from her husband, Archana gave the outdoors a try and soon discovered she was hardier than she thought. One adventure led to another and her confidence soared to the extent that today, at the age of 42, Archana Sardana is the first woman BASE jumper in India, a skydiver, a mountaineer and a scuba-diving instructor.

One of the most important benefits of adventure and endurance sports is their capacity to build self-confidence and leadership. Be it men or women, sports make the athlete believe in their mental and physical capacities. “Sport can be a great platform to remind women of what their bodies and minds are capable of achieving. I truly believe that adventure activities make you a strong and independent person. They help you explore yourself as an individual. And once you have experienced extreme physical and mental stress and overcome it successfully, you come to realise that you are capable of taking on any problem that life throws at you. Adventure sports teach you how to be calm and strong at the same time,” explains Sardana.

Milind Soman, a model, actor and an athlete, is also a name synonymous with ‘Pinkathon’- a woman’s only run in India. Pinkathon was founded by Soman in 2012 and has fast grown to become India’s biggest women’s run. Soman says,

“We developed Pinkathon more as a community project to spread awareness of the importance of an active lifestyle for women. The Pinkathon is more than a Marathon. It is the beginning of a movement, carried forward by a growing

community of empowered women across India, who share a belief that a healthy and gender-equal family, nation and world begins with individual, empowered women who inspire each other in everyday life to create a broader social change.”

The first run was held in Mumbai in 2012 with just 2,000 women participants. Pinkathon now has to cap its registration at 10,000 women in each of the eight Indian cities where it takes place. That is a big leap in participation and the effects can be seen at ground level in the cities where the race is promoted and held. Poorva Panvalkar, a 35-year-old primary school teacher had never considered herself capable of distance running- that is, before she took part in Pinkathon in 2015.

“One of my close friends was participating in Pinkathon and she encouraged me to sign up too. I was very skeptical about it and signed up for the shortest distance of 3 kilometers. That day I not only completed the run, I even grew fond of running. Today, I have completed three half marathons, have taken up mountain biking and am training to complete a full marathon by this year-end. I now make an active effort to encourage other women around me- including my students at the school to be active and take up sports- even if it is as recreation. I realised that if I can complete a 21 kilometer run, I can take on any other challenge that comes my way!”

Stories of women like Poorva are relatable to others and they inspire change at a community level. When more and more women are seen engaging in sports, it normalises that activity and kicks off a slow but organic change in the attitude towards women.

Setting an example: Female athletes as role models & change makers

In a country where surfing is almost unheard of, Ishita Malaviya became India’s first professional woman surfer. She has now set up her own surf club in the small coastal village of Kodi Bengere in the state of Karnataka in southern India. Her way of giving back to the community in the village is by teaching the local fishermen’s children to swim, surf and learn about the ocean. Her surf club has also partnered with the Australian Life Saving Society and Austswim in order to teach the children at the local government school to become junior lifeguards.

Ishita believes that this small act could empower the village girls and promote a sense of gender equality among the boys and girls. In just a matter of a few years, Ishita is not only teaching the fishermen’s children but also their mothers and grandmothers now. The women themselves got emboldened by their daughters surfing and decided to learn it too.

As such, while breaking stereotypes, women athletes- professional or not, also become role models for other women. According to a report by UNDP, sports inculcate vital skills like leadership, patience, teamwork and more. Women who imbibe these positive qualities are also more likely to succeed in their professional realm and become decision makers in their fields. Through their positions, these women stand much better chances of being able to influence positive change in the society.

Media as a catalyst for positive change

Media plays a vital role in creating awareness about women athletes and gender equality. The way the media covers these athletes and their sport determines the way in which the masses look upon the issue of women and sports. In a country where men’s cricket rules the roost in sports, it is difficult for outlier sports like cycling, distance running, paragliding, surfing and others to gain much media space.

Back in 2009, when Anu Vaidyanathan completed the Ultraman, awareness about such events was marginal in India. This was reflected in the fact that only one media house deemed fit to cover her success story. However, the growing interest in these sports also means that in just over five years after Anu’s victory, the media is taking much more cognizance of the women athletes and their stories.

“When the national media picks up stories about community and individual level women participation in sports, awareness can be created on a macro level. Gender sensitization and a dialogue on women’s empowerment through sports can have useful effects in breaking certain barriers for sportswomen and in reducing the gender bias,” explains Milind Soman.

Coming full circle

From Anu to Ishita, all the stories have one common thread- empowerment through sports. In India’s complex social and cultural fabric, this multi-modal utilization of sports as a tool to empower women is crucial. The reasons of each of these women to engage in these unusual sports may have been different, but their cumulative effect is helping in teasing out the problem of gender bias against women.

Sports and adventure can thus become a welcome catalyst to reach the goal of gender equality in India. Athletes, especially those in adventure and endurance sports find a unique outlook towards life. For them, gender comes secondary to the sport.

At the time when Anu Vaidyanathan was willing herself to run the last mile at the Ultraman, her only goal was to finish the race. In those moments, all that mattered to her was how she overcomes her weakness, channelizes her energies and pushes the envelope. After all, sport is about persistence, focus, determination and achievement, and in pursuit of this, one’s gender seems irrelevant.