Talent spotting is one of the stated goals of the ongoing women's boxing nationals in Haridwar. Undoubtedly, one of the brightest sparks so far has been Haryana's Monika in the 48kg class.
Competing in her first-ever Senior Nationals Championships, the 19-year-old from Rurkee village in Rohtak district assured herself of a bronze medal with a 4-1 win in the quarterfinals against Sudesh of All India Police. Monika had won her first round by technical knockout and won a unanimous points decision in the next round. She eventually bowed out in the semi-finals, finishing at the wrong end of a debatable 2-3 decision to home boxer Krishna Thapa.
Monika's achievement is even more impressive considering she only weighs 45kg, even though she appears lighter with her close-cropped hair.
Before the contest begins, she's given away a significant three kilogramme weight advantage in what is already boxing's lightest weight class. Considering all her competitors usually drop a couple of kilos to make the required weight, her handicap is even more striking.
Monika has played the underdog all her life. She's the second youngest of six siblings in a Dalit family. Father Mandher Singh works at construction sites, earning 300 rupees on a day he does find employment. It's a hardscrabble life, and sport, frankly, wasn't a priority. "For a long time no one in my village knew what boxing was. The expectation was that I should study a little bit and then get married," she says.
"Sometimes there wasn't money for food. My father would give me money and sometimes take a loan to send me for tournaments."
All that changed in 2012. Inspired by Mary Kom's bronze-winning feat at the London Olympics, Sudhir Hooda, who had just been elected as the village pradhan(head), decided to open a boxing academy. When the call went out for the girls to join, Monika too went. It was the pradhan's idea after all.
Vijay Hooda, who started the academy along with Sudhir and still coaches there, says Monika stood out immediately. "She was just much quicker than any of the other girls. And she moved perfectly. She was a natural boxer," he says.
Within a few months though, with murmurs of disapproval from her neighbourhood, her father wanted her to leave. "Sudhir and I went to Monika's home and had to convince him to let her box. It is hard for a villager to let his daughter box and even harder for someone from her community. We knew he was worried about her safety, so we would take her to practice and bring her back home ourselves," Hooda says.
Monika rewarded that faith in her abilities. Winning her weight class at the junior and senior levels in her state since the last four years, she went on to be named as the best boxer in two of those years.
While her rise has coincided with chaos in the boxing administration at the national level, she proved herself in the limited opportunities she got. At the 2015 Bongaigaon Nationals, organized by the ad-hoc committee that was then running boxing, she won the 48kg category. Multiple glittering medals, cups and trophies now jostle for space in her family's tiny mud house. Her performances helped her earn a place at the Sports Authority of India's National Boxing Academy that recently opened in Rohtak.
None of this success has been easy. The fact that she concedes such a significant weight advantage is just a reminder of the challenges she faces daily. "Sometimes there wasn't money for food. My father would give me money and sometimes take a loan to send me for tournaments but it is hard," Monika says.
"For a long time no one in my village knew what boxing was. The expectation was that I should study a little bit and then get married."
Seeing her talent, others help where they can. Monika says Hooda has routinely spent out of his pocket to buy kit and pay for her travel expenses. He bought her track shoes ahead of the Haridwar nationals after noticing that she was running in a pair that was splitting its seams. "It's nothing. She is a talent that must not go to waste and I want her to succeed," he shrugs.
Preeti Beniwal, who competes in the 60kg division, loaned Monika her old ring boots for the tournament. It's a size too large but that's not a concern. "It's a size six and I'm a size five. It's a little loose but I just tie the laces a bit tight so it fits," she says.
Despite fighting in boots a size too big, it seems there has been little impact on her performance. Her teammates call her Tyson -- the generic name for an aggressive boxer, it seems. But the name Pacquiao would suit her better -- the Filipino was also less than the minimum weight at the start of his career. Monika's style is also similar to his. She too launches herself off the canvas with a 'superman' style punch and crowds her opponents hitting them with a barrage of shots coming from multiple angles.
She hasn't got a chance to display that style at the national camp so far. But that's likely to change now through her bronze medal, which guarantees her a spot when the camp is called in January next year.
Coach Jagdish Singh, who founded the Bhiwani Boxing Club and has produced boxers like Olympic medallist Vijender Singh and Akhil Kumar, has high hopes from Monika.
"This girl has really fast motor abilities and very good handspeed. She isn't the most accurate puncher. She wastes a lot of her punches. But the most important ability she has is aggression. You can't coach that in a boxer. She is born with that," says Singh, who has worked with Monika for a couple of months at the National Boxing Academy.
"She just needs some polish. At the National Boxing Academy, her diet has improved tremendously and she will get good nutrition at the national camp too. Just wait till she gets a little more muscle on her and a little bit of experience in the national camp, she is going to make a lot of seniors retire," he says.