When she flies with the rest of the Indian para sports contingent to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in a couple of days’ time, Sharmila Dhankar isn’t just planning to make up the numbers. She has a clear goal seared into her mind.
“I have to win a medal,” she tells Sportstar.
Sharmila, who competes in the women’s seated shot put (F57), has competed once before at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games four years ago, where she finished just outside the podium.
“This time I won’t let that happen,” she says. “I’m travelling so far. I can’t come back empty-handed.”
Sharmila Dhankar before leaving for Glasgow, where she will represent India in the women’s F57 shot put after a remarkable journey back to sport and life. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Few athletes in Glasgow have travelled as daunting a road to get there as Sharmila.
In her navy blue tracksuit with “India” printed across the back, her hair cut in a no-nonsense bob typical of many athletes from Haryana, broad shoulders, piercing gaze and sky-high ambitions, Sharmila, 40, looks every bit the international athlete.
But this wasn’t always the case.
Fourteen years ago, Sharmila says simply, she didn’t want to live.
Born on Independence Day but raised within the shackles of rural Haryana, she was married off at 18 to a man who beat and severely abused her. She felt she had no choice but to endure it.
“Where I am from, it is just something that is accepted. You learn to adjust. I adjusted,” she says.
The abuse started soon after her marriage.
“He used to get drunk. He would use drugs. I worked in the fields, and I worked taking care of cattle. It was never enough. First, he beat me because I didn’t bring the dowry he wanted. Then he beat me because I gave birth to two daughters.”
Eventually, the violence escalated.
“When I was 26, he beat me, stripped me naked in front of the neighbours and threw me out of my home with my two daughters. That was when my parents took me back home,” she recalls.
More than once, Sharmila thought of ending her life.
“I had nothing to look forward to. I didn’t see any future. I thought, let me commit suicide with my daughters. But every time I stopped at the last moment.”
Hard life
As long as Sharmila can remember, life has been hard.
Growing up in Chitrauli, a village in Haryana’s Mahendergarh district, there was never enough money to go around. Her mother, who was blind, was nearly 20 years younger than her father, a farmer with a small landholding in the drought-prone region bordering Rajasthan.
Sharmila was the second of three daughters. A son was born a decade after the youngest girl.
Medical care was hard to come by. Sharmila contracted polio when she was just two years old, leaving her left leg permanently affected.
But even then, Sharmila had dreams.
“When I was in school, I was always the top student. I thought I’d become a police officer. I also dreamed that one day I’d play sports, but I knew that with my handicap, it was not possible.”
Her dreams, however, didn’t match her circumstances.
As soon as she passed her Class 10 examinations, her parents arranged her marriage.
“I was intelligent, but where I’m from, it was just how things were done.”
When her marriage finally collapsed, she returned home determined to rebuild her life.
“There were several moments where I felt I didn’t have the strength to carry on, but I felt I must fight.”
She took up whatever work she could find.
“I worked as a maid and then as a cleaner and guard at a women’s hospital near my village. The pay was not much, but it kept me busy and feeling useful.”
At 28, she married for the second time.
She did so reluctantly.
“It wasn’t my choice at first because my first experience was so bad, but I felt I needed to for the sake of my two daughters and because I didn’t want to become a burden to my parents, who were getting old. I had no great expectations from the marriage itself.”
Although she didn’t expect it, her decision proved to be the right one.
After their marriage, her husband Ajit Singh took her and her children, Anuj and Lakshmi, now 16 and 13 respectively, to the town of Rewari, where he worked as a mistri (craftsperson) repairing electrical equipment.
Ajit was everything her first husband wasn’t.
“A lot of men would think it beneath them to marry a divorcee with two children, but he has always loved and supported us. The children don’t see him as anything other than their father, and he doesn’t see them as anything other than his own children.”
The support behind Sharmila Dhankar’s journey. Husband Ajit Singh (left), daughters Lakshmi (second from left) and Anuj (right) have stood by the para shot putter through every step of her rise. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Dreaming once again
Ajit didn’t just support Sharmila. He reminded her that she still had dreams worth chasing, dreams she herself had forgotten.
“I’m not rich or educated. I’ve only studied till Class 8. But I always loved sports. Even when I was working, I would play badminton in the morning. I was also very curious. I read a lot of news. One day in 2018, I read about para athletics, and I wondered why Sharmila couldn’t also take part. So I asked her, ‘ Mehnat karegi?’ (Are you willing to work hard?)”
At first, Sharmila thought her husband had lost his mind.
“I’d never played any sport. And with my handicap, I couldn’t even run. I was also 34 years old. I was going to start at an age where everyone else was ending their career. Despite all this, my husband was very insistent that we explore the idea.”
After asking everyone they knew, they eventually learned that the Rao Tularam Stadium, near their home in Rewari, had para athletes training there. One of them was Tek Chand, bronze medallist in the seated shot put at the 2018 Asian Para Games, who was also working as a coach at the stadium.
“I went and approached Tek Chand sir, and told him that I also wanted to compete in para sports. He gave me a gola (shot) and asked me to throw just to see what my level was. In my first throw, I threw the shot about five metres. When I did that, he looked very surprised. I found out later that the national record was around 6m. He told me, ‘Sharmila, you are already throwing near the national record on your first day. You have a lot of talent.’ When he said that, I also started believing I had the potential to do something special.”
As she immersed herself in training, her performances improved rapidly.
By the following year, she had won gold at the National Championships with a new national record of 7.40m. A year later, she qualified for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where she finished fourth despite improving the national record to 8.43m. At last year’s World Championships in New Delhi, she improved the national mark once more to 10.03m while finishing fifth.
Throughout it all, her family backed her to the hilt.
“When I started training, the first thing my husband told me was that it was time to cut my hair short. I always had long hair down to my waist, but my husband told me that all the top athletes in Haryana kept short hair, and now that I was going to be a sportsperson, I should do the same.”
But Ajit did more than encourage cosmetic changes.
“When I started my career, I realised how expensive it is to be a sportsperson. My husband would spend most of his earnings on my training and on my travel to competitions. In 2023, he even sold our house so that I could use the money to prepare for the competition. We now stay in rented accommodation.
“My two daughters are also very supportive. They say, ‘Mummy, you go and train; we will manage the house.’ Kehte hain aandhi toofan aa jaye, but aapko training karni hai (Whatever happens, you have to train).”
Help has come from Sharmila’s mother as well.
“My father passed away in 2023. My mother doesn’t know much about sports, but that year, when she found out that I was struggling financially, she sold half a killa of our farmland and gave me the money from its sale. She tells me that she wants to see me succeed as well.”
Sharmila Dhankar took up para athletics at 34. Years of relentless training have since transformed her into one of India’s leading F57 shot putters. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Growing ambitions
She hopes success will come at the Commonwealth Games. Should that happen, Sharmila hopes it will only be the first of many milestones.
“I really want to win a Commonwealth Games medal, but I hope that one day I can go on to win a medal at the Paralympics as well.”
She also hopes to make a difference in her daughters’ lives.
“I was lucky that I found a good man who supported me and helped me chase my dreams. But I want both Anuj and Lakshmi to be able to chase their own dreams independently.”
Following in their mother’s footsteps, both have taken to sports with some success. Lakshmi has started training in the long jump, while Anuj won gold in the Under-16 javelin throw competition at the North Zone Championships last year.
“It’s my dream that one day my daughters and I will all compete at a Commonwealth Games and win medals together,” Sharmila says earnestly.
And while she is charting her own journey as an athlete, Anuj can’t help but admire what her mother has accomplished. “She has struggled so much in her life to get to where she is now. I consider her my role model,” Anuj says.
Sharmila hopes to stand on the podium in a week’s time, but whatever happens in Glasgow, in many ways, she is already a winner .“When I returned home after my first marriage ended, people felt sorry for me. I also felt sorry for myself. When I think of that scared young woman who was tortured by her husband, and who thought she should end her own life, I can’t believe she’s now an international athlete who goes and competes around the world. I feel as though sports has given me a second life and I want to live all of it now.”
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Published on Jul 21, 2026