A swimming Dangal: Mumbai cop whose dream died now trains his twins for Olympics

When Mahavir Phogat trained his daughters to become internationally-renewed wrestlers, his story was inspired into the 2015 blockbuster Dangal.

Now, another story – this time of a father who couldn’t achieve his dream of becoming a professional swimmer, but is training his daughters while working as a cop, has gone viral.

For Mumbaikar Bajirao Patil, swimming is everything. He once swam the Greek Seas for 13 hours at a stretch, but could never afford to follow his dreams of becoming a professional swimmer.

So like most individuals, who don’t have money to pursue a dream, Patil took up a job and became a beat cop patrolling the city at night, when most of us are tucked in bed.

But Patil didn’t let his dreams go to waste. Today, he coaches his twin daughters – Jyoti and Aarti - during the day and hopes that one day, they are able to participate in the Olympic Games.

His inspirational story has been made into a short film by Humans of Bombay. “This isn’t my story. It’s the story of my daughters who want to achieve a world record.

To get them accustomed to the water and improve their timings, Patil trained them to cover five kilometres in the sea, doing the breaststroke. The results were eventually successful. The girls became the youngest twins in the world to record the fastest combined time for the breaststroke while swimming in sea.

Patil’s coaching methods are firm. He says that while training his children, he behaves like a coach and not a father. “They tell me that they are in pain, but I tell them that to gain something, you have to lose something,”

There is competition between the girls as well. “The recently came first and second in the nationals. It’s become routine between them and it’s healthy competition,” says Patil.

Watch the touching story here