At the Paris Olympics 2024 , the disqualification of wrestler Vinesh Phogat from the finals due to being 100 gm overweight, left every Indian with a broken heart. Actor Nakuul Mehta was also one of them and in honour of Vinesh he recited a beautiful poem that he posted on Instagram. Mention Vinesh to him and he relates how the recent tragedy in Kolkata where a medical trainee was raped and murdered at a hospital is like a causal effect of what Vinesh fought for earlier.
Mehta says, “All of us are aware of the fight Vinesh had to put through and the circumstances she went through in the last year. With what’s going on in the country right now, with the incident in Kolkata, we have suddenly woken up and are protesting and dissenting. But honestly, this should have started when our wrestlers were out fighting the authorities on sexual misconduct.
We didn’t stand up for that, we only wake up when it’s too late, and it has happened today as well,” he says, referring to the wrestlers’ protests in 2023 for investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of female wrestlers by MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh during his tenure as the president of the Wrestling Federation of India. Nakuul is in awe of Phogat’s achievement irrespective of her result in Paris. “Her achievement in the Olympics is nothing short of spectacular.
For her to beat the Japanese wrestler, who had never been beaten before ever, was just amazing. In the final too, she was to face the Australian wrestler she had already defeated twice before, so there was a good chance that she would have bagged the gold and created history. It could have been the greatest highlight of our relationship.
But no matter what happened, for her to rise from the ashes and reach the Olympics after everything that happened to her, is nothing short of spectacular. It truly moved me,” he says, adding that he recorded his poem while he was in Ladakh and got to know about it getting viral two days later. “I had no idea how it went out and resonated with so many people.
It was after two days that I was able to get the network and see the reception. The poetry was a humble tribute to the giant inspiration that Vinesh is. It’s tragic what happened with Vinesh, but I feel she should be celebrated as much as we are celebrating Neeraj Chopra or Manu Bhaker.
” A post shared by Nakuul Mehta (@nakuulmehta) Coming back to the Kolkata horror, Nakuul insists, “It takes something so gruesome for us to wake up, but the wrestlers protest was happening in front of everyone in Delhi, yet no one batted an eyelid.” The actor admits that Independence Day this day didn’t feel as celebratory because of the incident: “I have been feeling it for a while. What happened is just so gruesome, but recently there was a case with a Dalit girl which didn’t get reported as such and there are so many such incidents that have been happening every day in our country and no one is taking cognizance of it.
I am glad that people have woken up, but I hope it doesn’t stop at one protest, one Instagram post of five stories. It needs continued support.” As a man, Nakuul asks other men to fulfil their role in this whole scenario.
“It’s up to us man to take a stand and change the thinking at grassroot level. Women have been facing this for far too long and it just couldn’t be them protesting. We need to put in even more.
As men, we should learn from this and try to be better. It’s not the time to have discussion about men and women. It’s time to make a safer space for women around us,” he ends.
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