Bhakti Sharma: Turning the tide

Premanand Gajinkar, 52, who coached Sharma at Mumbai’s Andheri Sports Complex for three months in a year for three years since she was 12, is not surprised by her ability to overcome challenges. “She had immense potential when she came to me. We built her endurance and strength with designated workouts. A swimmer must have power and confidence to deal with turning currents. Bhakti could easily combat such obstacles,” he says. “She practised for two hours in the mornings and two in the evenings, but never complained. She enjoyed those sessions.”

For her Antarctic sojourn, Sharma had trained for nearly two months in tough conditions. She quit her job with advertising agency FCBUlka in Mumbai and spent most of her time in Udaipur, where the lake water was no match for the cold she would encounter in the Earth’s southernmost continent. So, she added 15-20 tonnes of ice in a large tub and suspended herself into it for hours. This went on for 10 days till she realised it could have adverse implications on her health, including putting stress on the heart. 

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Despite intense preparations, she was all at sea in the Antarctic during the initial few minutes. The water was far from friendly. “I was ready for the cold, but the water felt heavy because of the melting glaciers. It was dark and greyish, and the salt content was high. It was like pulling through oil,” reminisces Sharma. “For the first few minutes, I thought I won’t be able to do it. But my mental training helped. I decided to take it one stroke at a time.”  

Yoga strengthened her mind. While in Udaipur, she meditated and spoke to her teacher (an elderly relative) to dispel doubts and fears that kept creeping in her head. The result was breaking a previous record (of covering 1.6 km in 18 minutes and 10 seconds) set by Britain’s Lewis Pugh in December 2005 at the age of 36. It won her praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi too. Sharma also found an unlikely supporter during that swim: A penguin. “After about 10 minutes into the water, I saw it go under my stomach. I took it as my personal cheerleader,” she says. 

Encounters with stingrays, sea lions and jelly fish have given Sharma a glimpse of marine life up close. In fact, during her 2007 swim of the Strait of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean Sea off Spain, she saw a fin to her right. By the time she completed a stroke and looked again, it wasn’t visible. “I thought I had imagined it,” says Sharma, who goes through a range of emotions during her long swims and sings Bollywood songs to entertain herself. Her mother told her after the swim that a fin whale was indeed by her side for a short while.

Such experiences romanticise the nature of the sport, but they often hide its ugly realities. Lack of acknowledgement for swimming in the country and paucity of financial support are major roadblocks that Sharma points to. “Swimming itself is not the main sport in India,” she rues.

Until her Gibraltar expedition, her family took care of the expenses and logistics. “I am their investment,” says Sharma, who loves travelling to new places. She found partial sponsorship from Hindustan Zinc, a Vedanta Group company, for her Antarctica swim, apart from relying on crowdfunding.

Leena claims they have spent crores on the expeditions and got less than 50 percent in sponsorships. A common refrain from those she approached for monetary assistance: Why doesn’t she compete in the Olympics instead of doing all this?

Sharma’s father Chandra Shekhar worked for a watch factory in Mumbai before moving to Udaipur to start a marble business. Leena was chief cashier with Bank of India who took voluntary retirement in 2009. They lived in a one-bedroom flat in Udaipur and rented eight homes before buying their own house. “We, as a family, have grown together,” says an emotional Sharma, who aspires to be a successful businessperson. 

Sharma went to the US with the intention of training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. “But I miscalculated the time and energy that it takes. I have not been able to train as much, partly because I am also a teaching assistant and that takes up a lot of my time. This comes with the struggle of not having a sponsor,” she laments, before adding that she will strive hard to compete in the Games.

Sharma sees her achievements as merely meeting the targets that she had set for herself. “Till the Arctic swim, I did not realise the gravity of what I had done. But it has definitely given me a voice at different levels,” says Sharma, referring to the various platforms where she is often invited to narrate her story and encourage young girls to take up the sport. 

The tide, she hopes, will turn one day.