Against All Odds: Inspiring tales from Sportspersons
Cancerman to Ironman: A Police Officer’s Journey of Arresting Illness
By Nidhin Valsan
In this deeply personal memoir, Valsan recounts his experience from the harrowing ordeal of seeking the right diagnosis and coming to terms with it, gruelling chemotherapy sessions in his home state of Kerala, to his momentous decision during rehabilitation to pursue an audacious goal: competing in the Ironman triathlon, one of the world’s most demanding endurance challenges.
Cancerman to Ironman is more than a tale of athletic triumph. Raw, revealing and strikingly candid, it unveils the heart behind Valsan’s battle, the support system that sustained him, and the mental and physical strategies that fuelled his perseverance – a testament to the resilience of the human spirit during life’s darkest days.
Witness
By Sakshi Malik
No athlete ends their career when they could still be in the game. But Sakshi has always gone against the grain. In this fiery memoir, she tells her story from her childhood, her introduction to wrestling in Rohtak, her win at the Rio Olympics and her post-Olympics journey, her struggles and triumphs over injury and self-doubt and, finally, her most recent public battle with the administration of the WFI that has played out on the streets of New Delhi. Interspersed through her story are fascinating insights into the world of women’s wrestling in India – training, camp life, body image issues, dating, finances and what it takes to be an elite international wrestler.
Gripping, moving and insightful, this is a book of rare candour and courage – one which will be seen as a sporting classic.
My Beautiful Sisters: A Story of Courage, Hope and the Afghan Women’s Football Team
by Khalida Popal
For Khalida Popal, the team’s first captain and co-founder, this is not an unprecedented event. Born in Afghanistan, she fled Taliban rule as a child with her family and grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan. On her return to Afghanistan, football gave her and her teammates power, comradeship and freedom. But advocating for women’s rights in sports put Popal’s life increasingly at risk, forcing her to flee the country, this time alone.
My Beautiful Sisters is a gripping memoir about courage, the power of teamwork against all odds and the existence of hope in dark times.
The Day I Became a Runner: A Women’s History of India through the Lens of Sport
By Sohini Chattopadhyay
The Day I Became a Runner starts from a striking premise-that, since running is a solitary activity conducted in the public sphere, women who take up this sport pose a more direct challenge to patriarchy than those who play sports such as badminton, cricket and tennis. To support this thesis, award-winning journalist Sohini Chattopadhyay presents the compelling stories of eight athletes spanning the entire history of independent India and involving women from a wide range of social and geographical backgrounds.
Written with remarkable insight and poignancy, The Day I Became a Runner is an alternative account of the Indian republic chronicled through the lens of its women athletes. In that sense, it is a women’s history of India.