NEW DELHI: “I am living a dream”, said Hima Das as she tried to put in words her remarkable journey from being a stubborn footballer in a nondescript Assam village to becoming the first Indian woman world champion in athletics.
The 18-year-old Das, daughter of farmer parents at Kandhulimari village at Nagaon district, has become the toast of the nation after she won a gold at the IAAF World U-20 Athletics Championships in Finland yesterday.
She is also the first Indian — male or female — to have won a gold in a track event at the world level.
She joined Neeraj Chopra who won a gold in javelin — a field event — in the IAAF World U-20 Championships in the last edition in 2016 in Poland.
Her father Ronjit Das has a 2 bigha (0.4 acres) plot of land and her mother Junali is a housewife. The small piece of land was the only source of income for a family of six.
“I know my family’s condition and how we struggled. But the Almighty has something for everybody. I am a positive person and I want to look ahead in life and do something for my parents and for the country,” Das told reporters from Tampere in Finland today.
“But it has been like a dream so far. I am now a world junior champion,” she added.
Das is the eldest of four siblings. She has three younger sisters and a younger brother. One younger sister is in class 10 while the twins — a boy and a girl — are in class III. Hima herself is in class XII at a college in Dhing, just one and a half kilometers from her village.
“She is very stubborn, if she wants to do something she will not listen to anybody but she will do it with aplomb. She is a strong girl and that is why she is coming up to achieve something. I hope she will do something for the country,” her father Ronjit said from his village in Assam. (AGENCIES)
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