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Saniya: An Inspiration
As the school bell rings, while all children find their way back home, one girl dressed in traditional Muslim attire is found practicing boxing. The 18-year-old Saniya hailing from Chittoor district is an upcoming professional boxer. She started off with boxing as a hobby in the year 2014, and has grown to national level and stood tall as inspiration and triggered interest in many girls.
As the school bell rings, while all children find their way back home, one girl dressed in traditional Muslim attire is found practicing boxing. The 18-year-old Saniya hailing from Chittoor district is an upcoming professional boxer. She started off with boxing as a hobby in the year 2014, and has grown to national level and stood tall as inspiration and triggered interest in many girls.
18-year-old Saniya from a traditional Muslim family started learning boxing as a hobby and self- defence that turned into a career in sports
This passionate boxer had walked around 2 km every day to undergo extensive practice for over one and half hour after school. She started participating in professional tournaments from Class X and has already won two gold medals and two silver medals, and various certificates during her four-year boxing stint, so far.
She had bagged silver medal in under 17 Category at Guntur state level sport and a silver medal at Machilipatnam state tournament in 2015. She even won gold medal in under 19 Category at Tirupati state tournament in 2016 and positioned herself at quarter finals in national level competition too.
Sharing her experiences, the upcoming boxer said, “Initially my master D Surendra Babu, a physical education teacher, who was instrumental in promoting boxing among rural school students at Yerra Cheruvu ZP high School of Puthala Pattu mandal triggered interest in me. He said that boxing is a self-defence sport.
Later, I began professional practice and today, boxing is a real-time profession for me. Coach Surendra has also financially supported my boxing training.”
Part of the credit of her success also goes to her parents, K Haseena (teacher) and K Hayath Basha (RTC employee), who agreed and encouraged her to pursue her interest that enabled her to develop self-confidence.
It is heartening to see that the Teachers Training Course student at Vivekananda College, Puthala Pattu, Saniya has overcome societal taboos and became an inspiration to three more girls, D Varalakshmi class 9, A Neeraja and B Sravani class 10 of Yerra Cheruvu School to take up boxing.
By K. Nethaji
