Kabir Khan’s Ode to Winners, Losers & Dreamers

Muralikant Petkar will be 80 this year. Even in a country where fiction can't compete with reality, his is an extraordinary story. But most of us likely don't know him. “You will be shocked that you did not know this person before the film,” director Kabir Khan said in a recent interview. I'm a sports fan but I hadn't heard of Petkar until I read about the film a few months ago and looked up India's first Paralympic gold medallist.

His big dream, to win an Olympic gold medal, germinated in childhood after his older brother took him to witness a village welcoming back its champion—Khashaba Jadhav—the first athlete from independent India to win an individual Olympic medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. I'm guessing you haven't heard of Jadhav either. But such dreams are crushed matter-of-factly in India, where parents grant their children permission only to top exams and be doctors or engineers.

Petkar's village and his father dismissed the young boy's dream. Schoolmates laughed and called him Chandu Champion (Loser Champion). Khan's film is an ode to such losers who have the self-belief to dream big. “I want to fight for every Chandu who wants to be a champion,” the lead character, played by Kartik Aaryan, says in the film. 

When belief falters or is beaten down by life, Petkar finds recognition and friendship in the kindness of strangers. He counts on his mentor/coach Tiger Ali (played by Vijay Raaz) who reminds him that you need to “win over” your inside voice that tells you that you have already lost.

The film has more twists and turns than most Indian sports biopics largely due to its protagonist's almost unbelievable rollercoaster life. That staple villain—the sports bureaucrat—barely makes an appearance. Petkar's hurdles are more dramatic and include war, coma, terrorism and disability. 

 In recent years Bollywood has opted to dig deeper for real-life stories than the biographies of relatively well known people such as athlete Milkha Singh and freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. Just this year we've seen a slew of films about relatively unknown Indians. Srikanth was the story of Srikanth Bolla, a visually-impaired industrialist and the founder of Bollant Industries. Maidan told the story of Syed Abdul Rahim, a legendary football coach and Ae Watan Mere Watan was the dedicated to the gutsy Gandhian Usha Mehta, who started an underground radio during the Quit India Movement. Amar Singh Chamkila mainstreamed one of Punjab's best known folk singers and last year's 12th Fail was about Manoj Kumar Sharma, who clawed his way out of extreme poverty to join the Indian Police Service. 

Khan has great raw material to work with in Chandu Champion, but his editing out of details is impeccable too. He sharp focuses Petkar's story, distilling the heart and heartbreak of the man, not getting bogged down tracking every aspect of his life. To give you just one example, he leaves out Petkar's tryst with table tennis. Then Khan uses technical skills and empathetic storytelling to elevate this tale further. 

There's high voltage action in an 8-minute single shot, war sequence filmed on location in Kashmir's Aru Valley, located in the midst of alpine lakes and meadows, and forceful energy in a song pictured inside and on top of a train, Chaiyya Chaiyya style. 

“If you win a medal you get a lot of respect,” the naive child protagonist says in the film. We all know that's never been the case in India. We often hear stories of athletes who excelled in international sporting meets, only to die forgotten and in penury. For the first time in the history of Indian sport, last year the entire nation saw first-hand how callously we treat our sports stars when top wrestlers embarked on a prolonged public protest. Chandu Champion too, begins with Petkar's grouse against his country.

Khan's film is an ode to hope and resilience. To people who don't stop trying. To those who are forced to fight the wars that others mastermind. To para athletes who don't need your pity (incidentally, Indians have won nine gold, 12 silver and 10 bronze medals at the Paralympic Games). It's a ballad to losers who are big winners.

Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.

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