2 out of 4 stars
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Out of all the sports people play, there's something about boxing that makes for such a fantastic transformation story. Rocky Balboa is my favorite - a man who becomes a boxer and rises against all odds while still maintaining his humble personality. With such a fantastic movie series, it's impossible not to draw comparisons against Narendra Ramakant More, the main character in Rajesh Rao's Champ, A Rags To Riches Story. Narendra's underdog story is given even more of an underdog slant as he lives in a slum in India.
The book kicks off not primarily focused on Narendra but his family. His father is a "lowly daily wage helper and handcart puller"; his days consist of waking up, drinking liquor and looking for jobs. Shortly into the book, Narendra's mother is raped viciously, leaving her in a vegetative state. As she was the main breadwinner, the only solution his father could find was to sell two of Narendra's sisters, keeping one (Latatai) to take care of the house and work to earn money.
Narendra comes across a boxing exhibition and ends up falling in love with the sport, and at the age of 10 he begins training. Time passes very quickly and now he's 20 years old with an impeccable record, fighting in bigger and bigger arenas against tougher opponents across the world. He has so many medals that he can't even display them, simply tossing them all together or giving them to his coach! But as Narendra climbs the ranks and attracts the world's best fighters, what will become of him, his amazing record and his family?
The story uses an exceedingly omniscient third person view, one that often jumps ahead and says things like how Narenda would go on to become the undisputed bantam weight champion of all 3 major organizations of professional boxing. The fact this is stated not even a quarter of the way into the book before he even begins training really ruins any possibility of tense moments in Narenda's boxing future. Despite being omniscient, however, it sometimes just seems wrong - at one point it mentions him having a 30-0 record with 25 KOs, and much later in the book he has a 25-0 record with 15 KOs. Even if the previously mentioned record was about the future and not the present, or the latter didn't include all of his matches, it's mathematically impossible to get 5 more wins with 10 more KOs. The book also feels a bit absurd at times - even after Narendra becomes a worldwide star and wealthy as can be, he still doesn't even remember the sisters that were sold when he was younger for several months. For a story that worked so hard to build upon his youth and past, it's startling that it took him this long to even attempt to seek them out. As a note: while things like these may seem like spoilers, they occur shortly into the book - not even halfway in!
There are also a number of times that the book gets rather confusing because of the narrator's propensity to jump ahead and to digress - it will talk about someone Narendra is about to fight and then suddenly jump to not only the other boxer's past but his opponent's coach's past. The book then spends as much time talking about this as it does the match; the first tournament Narendra participates in, in fact, is given only a few paragraphs for his first fight and then only two sentences for the rest of the tournament even though the championship fight was more tensely fought. This incredibly quick speed of storytelling didn't allow for any time to really feel connected to a scene or worry how things will go with only a few exceptions. It also meant that fights never had the big moments like the Rocky movies had, where Rocky had to study and train in specific ways to be able to defeat each opponent, and then each round was a tense battle!
Finally, on a more personal level, I had a couple additional issues. There are numerous typoes from the very beginning, and one even uses the letter "u" in place of the word "you". However, my biggest fault with the entire book is one of the metaphors used - "fell like the twin towers" - to describe a boxer being killed in the ring by an uppercut. I understand that in other parts of the world this event wasn't as big as it was here in America, but it was a massive event here and its repercussions are still felt today. As an American who can still remember that awful day (luckily from an entirely different state), I really don't appreciate it being used so callously but others may not mind.
Despite all the flaws I mentioned, I still think the book deserves 2 out of 4 stars, although I'd give it 1.5 if possible. I didn't enjoy it myself, but I didn't hate it and the fact that it weighs in at under 100 pages makes it a featherweight just like Narendra. For those looking for a quick read and who have run out of boxing stories, I'm sure there are worse options out there.
******
Champ, A Rags To Riches Story
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