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sandeep

sandeep
kumar , bihar

Overhead shot of Sandeep Kumar (38) striking a gymnastic pose. He is clean-shaven and wears royal blue stretch pants. Tucked into the pants is a sleeveless vest in a royal blue and white pattern. He has black arm bands on his wrists. His muscular body is gleaming with sweat. With arms outspread he has stretched his legs as if doing a ballet ‘split’ – body lowered with right leg stretched forward and left leg stretched backward. The floor is dark green.
Frontal shot of Sandeep in the gym, in royal blue stretch pants and vest, raising himself up by his arms on a steel crossbar. The gym has dark green walls and floor and a high ceiling. The metal beams and struts of the asbestos ceiling are painted dark brown.
Sandeep stands in a brown wooden doorway that separates two rooms. He wears a slate-grey T-shirt and holds an open, aquamarine blue file in his hands, looking into the sheets of paper within. The room behind him has a brown ceiling fan and blue walls. Pasted on the open brown door are two sheets of paper, one white and white yellow, both saying “Happy Teacher’s Day” printed in black. To the left of Sandeep, four shelves of a grey metal bookrack are stacked with files and folders in different shades of blue, yellow and pink. To the right, a rectangular shelf has been divided into 10 levels of small square cubbyholes. Stuffed into the cubbyholes are rolls of paper and stationery items.
Silhouette of Sandeep, facing the camera and standing in a wide doorway with an aluminium frame. The door opens out into a cement-paved compound. He wears a black sleeveless vest tucked into pale blue shorts. He has club feet shod in grey and white sneakers. On either side of the open aluminium-and-glass doors, there are two rectangular panels of glass painted bright green enclosed in an aluminium frame. At the far end of the compound behind him is a block of flats. The façade of the building is a faded rose-pink.
Sandeep wearing his black vest and pale blue shorts is cycling on a paved compound. The ground is wet as if it has just rained. Surrounding the white cycle are four dogs: two following it and two facing it. Behind him there is one black and one white dog. In front there is a brown dog and a brown-and-white one. In the background there is a block of multi-storeyed flats with chipped and peeling pink walls and grey windows.
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“My father was my biggest supporter and sports is my greatest motivator”

When Sandeep Kumar (38) from Patna was a child he told his father Akhilesh Mishra that he wished to see a cricket match. Mishra took his little boy on his cycle to the Moin-ul-Haq stadium where a match was in progress. “Please allow my son to catch a glimpse,” he pleaded with the security guards, and they agreed. He hoisted Sandeep on his shoulders. “It was my first view of a cricket stadium. The green grass, the blue sky above… I thought, this is heaven,” he says, reviving one of his fondest memories. But it’s a bittersweet memory, for his dad is no more: he died on Diwali last year in a bike accident.
 
Sandeep, who was born with a club foot (his right heel is turned inward), loved playing cricket with his friends but wouldn’t have dreamt of becoming a professional cricketer. However, he did get into sports and become a national-level gymnast! The eldest son of Akhilesh Mishra, a kerosene trader, and Sarvani Devi, a homemaker, Sandeep has a brother, Pradeep, and a sister, Anjali. “My family is my strength,” he says. “They never made me feel any less because of my disability. My dad was my greatest supporter. In fact he bought me a football and encouraged me to kick it with my right foot.”
 
When Sandeep was in tenth standard, he used to accompany Pradeep to his gymnastics club. The coach Surender Kumar Vishwakarma noticed Sandeep and encouraged him to try out the sport. “Initially I was not sure, but the coach recognised my talent and trusted me,” he recalls. “It was the faith he had in me that transformed me into what I am today.” Anjali joined her older brothers in practising gymnastics; however, both she and Pradeep branched out into other fields. Anjali is a Mumbai-based actress: she has played minor roles in Hindi and Bhojpuri serials and movies. Dance became Pradeep’s passion; he is a dancer and choreographer who works at Dubai’s Bollywood Park and has participated in the reality shows Dance India Dance (Hindi) and Nach Nachaiya (Bhojpuri).
 
Sandeep, who cleared the NET exam and did his M.A. in Geography, stuck firmly to gymnastics. He took part in the 2015 Special Olympics and was also part of the India team in 2023, when we won a record 111 medals. He is not just aiming for personal glory, though. Helping others with disabilities is one of his key goals. He runs his own sports academy called Academy of Gymnastics, where he trains persons with and without disabilities, and also children with intellectual and developmental disabilities like autism. He recalls when he first encountered children with disabilities at a sporting event. “Initially I was intrigued – how will they manage? But the more I witnessed them on the field the more I was spellbound. At our academy we use sports to try and mainstream these children. If we identify exceptionally talented kids we train them for international competitions as well.”
 
Sandeep dons many ‘official’ hats: besides being Secretary of the Paralympic Committee of Bihar, Sports Director of Special Olympics Bharat and Area Director of Special Olympics Bihar, he is the National Sports Director of the Indian Sports Federation for Cerebral Palsy, and Sports Director of the Wheelchair Rugby Federation of India. He explains that wheelchair rugby players are usually those who have sustained spinal cord injuries following accidents. Many of them suffer from depression and are prone to suicidal thoughts. Sport is a way to make them more confident and give them a new purpose in life.
 
Sandeep has a packed daily schedule. At 4 a.m. he leaves home for his academy which is 20 km away. After training, which starts at 5 a.m., he retires to a nearby room that he has rented, freshens up, and heads to the Paralympic Committee office where he works till 4 p.m. Then he’s back at the academy to train, and returns home by 9 p.m. In his leisure hours he enjoys trekking, preferring to go to ‘untouched’ places that are less frequented by others, such as the Chaurasan Temple and the Rohtasgarh Fort, where he finds “great peace”. His favourite is the Kaimur range in Bihar.
 
“The special children in my academy have given me a new meaning and purpose,” Sandeep says. “I am their friend, guide, coach and trainer and through them I learn something new every day.”


Photos:

Vicky Roy

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