Beware of her harai goshi—India's female sumo wrestler

On most Sundays, at Oval Maidan, you’ll see a girl in a serious but strange fight with a boy.

Serious because it involves her trying to wrestle him to the ground or topple him; strange because the boy doesn’t seem to mind getting bashed up in public. He keeps coming back for more.

The boy, whose name is Akshay, does it because Hetal Dave, 22, is India’s only female Sumo wrestler. While it is no doubt a great distinction, there is the small matter of finding another female Sumo wrestler to practice with.

There being none, her brother, a judoka himself, sportingly agrees to being repeatedly thrown into mud.

“Sumo isn’t played in India,” explains Hetal. At 70kg, she looks nothing like the massive Japanese heavyweights that one associates with the sport. “I get that a lot. People hear about me and expect someone…,” she pauses, searching for the right word that would do justice to the size, “...gargantuan,” she finishes, stretching her hands to indicate bulk.

The lack of fat, however, doesn’t mean lack of skill - Hetal finished fifth place in two international Sumo championships, held in Rakvere, Estonia (2008) and Taiwan (2009).

Better than the boys Hetal has been a judoka since she was six. She trains with judo coach Cawas Billimoria, who also teaches Sumo wrestling at his class. Five years ago, when she was asked to help male Sumo wrestlers rehearse, she found she could easily defeat them.

Sumo has only two simple rules: to win, you must either push your opponent out of the 15-foot ring, or make sure she touches the ground with a part of her body other than her feet. Says Hetal, “I knew there was no other girl in India doing Sumo. I wanted to be the first one to be successful.”

For Hetal, the journey to success has been tough. The Sumo Federation of India merely processes names of candidates who wish to compete abroad. It does not help in training or finding a sponsor.

So, in 2008, even though Hetal was selected to participate at the World Sumo Championship in Estonia, she didn’t have a sponsor till a week before the tournament.

Hetal narrates a story about a prospective sponsor who enquired about the details of the tournament. When she mentioned she was participating in Sumo wrestling, he told her, “But isn’t Tata Sumo a car?” Dave was not amused. 

She did go to Estonia, however, thanks to a man who had heard about her. He sent his assistant to fetch Hetal’s father, Sudhir Dave.

When Sudhir met him, the sponsor posed no questions, enquired about the amount Hetal needed, and wrote out a cheque. “He was proud that a Brahmin girl had chosen to go to Estonia all alone, and the only thing that was stopping her was money. Brahmins are a conservative lot and Hetal’s determination struck him as unusual,” explains Sudhir.

Hetal had some more hurdles to cross however. The visas of all the male Sumo wrestlers from India who had been selected for the tournament were rejected, leaving her as the sole Indian participant in a country where no one spoke her language.

“Once more, I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t make it. But the mayor of Rakvere called up my father and assured him I would be fine,” remembers Hetal.

The mayor received her at the airport and put her up in a hotel. Since he couldn’t speak English himself, he sent his daughter to live with her.

“That was the first time I realised how much Estonia respected lesser-known sports, too. Till then, I had only seen disregard for female sportspersons and not-so-glamourous sports in India.”

Hetal went to her first international Sumo competition without the mandatory Sumo belt, called the mawashi. “I was too embarrassed to say I didn’t have it, so I told the organisers that I had lost mine, and played with a borrowed one.”

Father figure
Hetal lost the tournament for the simple reason that there was no one to direct her. In Sumo, it is fair for a coach (or even a relative or a team mate) to direct the wrestler in the ring and suggest appropriate moves.

“My father has never missed a single Judo tournament I’ve played in India and abroad. He directs me in Marwari and we have our own secret codes. When I play, his is the only voice I can hear. I’ve rarely lost a match with him around,” Hetal says, looking at her father.

Sudhir makes no effort to hide his pride. He left his job five years ago, when his daughter told him she wanted to learn Sumo wrestling.

He invests in shares and makes good money, but admits the family cannot afford too many luxuries. “In India, if you choose to be a female sportsperson, you choose the hard life. The only way Hetal can make it is through her family’s support,” says Sudhir.

For him, the choice has paid off. He speaks about the times he has seen players check the list for his daughter’s name, dreading the prospect of competing against her.

“Hetal has a signature throw - the harai goshi (the player steps across with her right foot, lifts the opponent over the shoulder, and throws her on the ground). Her competitors haven’t learnt to counter it yet,” he says.

Hetal was selected for the World Games (the sports that do not feature in the Olympics are played at the World Games) in 2009 and was partly sponsored by the Tatas.

She feels her performance has improved since then and cannot wait for the forthcoming World Championship in Poland in October.

Isn’t her passion a bit unusual among girls her age? Her nod tells you she’s heard that before. “It has its drawbacks. I didn’t have a normal school and college life because my priorities were always different from those of my peers,” she admits.

But then, her dream isn’t a normal one either. Few girls, after all, aspire to the title of Yokozuna — the highest rank in professional Sumo.