It is 6 am. The streets are still emptyand a noxious blanket of wood smokeand mist is yet to lift. Even the securi-ty paraphernalia that is standard issuein secluded Imphal, the capital of the

north-eastern state of Manipur, is conspicuousby its absence. Beside a massive shed not farfrom Kangla Fort, the ancient seat of the Meiteirulers of Manipur, a motley collection of youngathletes has been paired and instructed to car-ry each other around a small pond. Some slip,others tire, but nobody quits. More drills followuntil, with a final whistle blast, the groupmoves into the shed and quickly arranges itselfinto two neat lines.

There, an instructor stands commanding-ly and takes stock. When he talks, everybodyis silent. Then, with another shrill blast of thewhistle, the formation is broken and thegroup disperses to conduct their separateroutines. Clad in a red T-shirt, white shortsand a pair of sneakers, LeisangthemIbomcha Singh is still clearly the biggest manin the room filled with some 40 boxers.

It isn’t merely his imposing physical pres-ence, a throwback to the days spent sparringin the ring; 52-year-old Ibomcha, aDronacharya awardee in 2010, is amongIndia’s most successful boxing coaches, hav-ing trained at least 50 boxers who have wornthe Tricolour in international tournaments.These names are etched all over the massiveshed-like training hall of the SportsAuthority of India’s Imphal centre thatIbomcha heads. The heavy hitters he hadtrained are today legends of Indian boxing —S Suresh Singh, Dingko Singh, M SuranjoySingh, L Sarita Devi and MC Mary Kom, four-times world champion and London 2012Olympic medallist.

Yet, Ibomcha’s finest achievement isprobably not coaching world-beating cham-pions. Instead, it is his unshakeable commit-ment to the promotion of a sport that he hashelped transform from a holiday hobby to anopportunity for a better life for thousands ofyoung men and women in a violence-wracked, and often forgotten, corner of

India. Maybe that is why, on a bare whiteboard next to the boxing rings in the traininghall, Ibomcha has had this written down:“Give me sincerity, I give your future.”

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“I was the village buddhu (idiot),” Ibomchasays about his childhood in Suknu, a nonde-script village some 70 kilometres fromImphal, where he grew up with five siblings.For all his size and strength, he has an inher-ent sense of humour, a quality that led him toborrow a friend’s certificate to enroll in theIndian Army’s Assam Regiment after goingto Churachandpur for a football tournamentin 1978. “Till then, the only time I had doneboxing was when the army men from my vil-lage came back on leave. They carried thegloves with them and would teach the localkids,” he reminsces, sitting at his office in theSAI centre. Once in the Army, Ibomchaplayed his heart out. “I did boxing, gymnas-tic, hockey, football, basketball, everything.So, I didn’t get much shooting practice.”Slowly, boxing became his focus after theAssam Regiment found in him the only mancapable of defeating the Gurkhas in the ringand eventually, Ibomcha made it to the topbracket of the Army’s boxing contingent.

Around 1980, however, he had given upsoldiering, returning to Manipur to concen-trate on his personal boxing career and pro-moting the sport. Yet, neither was easy. Withno coaches, infrastructure or support sys-tem, Ibomcha and a couple of other enthusi-asts came together to form the ManipurAmateur Boxing Association. But they could-n’t hold a tournament because there werejust not enough boxers around. Boxing inManipur had been a low-key affair, especial-ly after a couple of boxers from Bengal hadhumiliated local strongmen in the mid-1950s, and a sort of informal ban on the sporthad been observed since. Nonchalantly, headds, “I was the first person to introducemodern boxing in Manipur.”

Between 1981 and 1986, Ibomcha was thestate champion of Manipur, and a bronzemedallist at the 1981 and 1986 SeniorNational Boxing Championship (in the 67 kgcategory) as well as the 1985 National Games.“I didn’t have a trainer or a coach. If I hadthat, I could’ve gone much further,” he says,pulling out a frayed copy of Walter DeanMyers’s The Greatest: Muhammad Ali. Thatwas his bible. Such is his love for the sportthat he christened his first son, Tyson, sincehe was born at the peak of Mike Tyson’s reignheavyweight champion

“People knew me more as aboxer then, rather than acoach. I would come runningfrom my village to Imphalsometimes. I was mad aboutboxing.” Although age andprosperity have now resultedin a paunch, it is not difficultto imagine the terror he

must’ve been in the ring — and some of thatfire is still on display when he spars with histop boxers.

That madness ensured he was at thenational camp preceding the 1986President’s Cup in Jakarta, where he knockedout the champion, DB Gurung, twice beforebeing selected for the squad. “That was mydream. I wanted to have India on my back.”Hours before the midnight flight, however,he was dropped from the team. “No reasonswere given. I still don’t know why it hap-pened, and didn’t even try and find out,” hesays slowly, his usually lively face now stoic.“I cried a lot that night. My pillow, the bedsheets, everything was wet. The next morn-ing I decided, I would stop competing andbecome a coach.”

Then, he leans back in his chair and final-ly adds, “Today, even if I die, I’ll be happy.”

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In militancy-ridden Manipur, where propereducation is scarce and a stable career, savegovernment jobs secured with bribes, evenscarcer, Ibomcha may have fathered a revolu-tion. For young Manipuris, boxing — despitethe hardship and pain — is emerging as thepassport to a better life: a secure governmentjob, apart from the monetary windfall ofbecoming a champion athlete. “It is a poorstate and most families live below the pover-ty line,” he admits. “For them, to put theirchild into a sport means ensuring theirhealth, character and a career. And boxing is

the most lucrative”. Maybe that is why children as

young as seven come to Ibomchato learn boxing, although herefuses to accept wards youngerthan 12 years because they canthen compete in a few years.“Without competition, you looseinterest easily,” he reasons.

Then there is also his reputa-

tion of a man of solid character, somethingthat is on display everyday at the SAI acade-my. In a training session that includes MSuranjoy Singh, Flyweight Asian Gamesbronze medallist and CommonwealthGames gold medallist, Ibomcha refuses todiscriminate. Everyone, from youngestgreenhorn to star, gets the same treatment.“When Mary is around, she also trains here,”he explains later, “There’s no difference, noclassification.” He maintains a neat notebookwhere the names and other details of all stu-dents that have trained under him have beencarefully noted. Some even have childhoodphotographs pasted next to the entries.

That emphasis on equality may be whyIbomcha has turned out world-beatingpugilists, regardless of gender or back-ground. In Manipur’s deeply-segregatedsociety where non-Meiteis are consider less-er among equals, MC Mary Kom, probablyhis most decorated student, is from the mar-ginal Kom tribe. And in boxing schools here,including at Mary Kom’s, there are probablyas many strapping young girls as boys. That,says Ibomcha, goes back to the ‘Nupi Lan’,the war that Manipuri women waged againstthe British in 1939. “There’s a saying that inManipur the women are always ahead of themen,” he explains, “They are more hard-working.”

It is this history of struggle and a strongwork ethic, Ibomcha believes, that allowsManipuri boxers to overcome the disadvan-tage of height, build and reach compared totheir brethren from India’s northern states.“In boxing, you need fighting spirit. To win orlose is a matter of a split second. Yes, we havea disadvantage but our blood puts us ahead.We have speed.” There are two large frames ofBir Tikendrajit and General Thangal, icons ofthe Manipuri martial spirit, above his chair.But the names and photographs that line thewalls of Ibomcha’s SAI centre are of his starstudents, athletes who wouldn’t have becomethe fighters they are without the tough love ofthis soft-spoken man.

Boxers such as Suranjoy Singh, who is onleave from the Indian Navy but insists ontravelling from his village to the SAI centre totrain every morning with his coach of 13years. “I think of him as equal to god.Because of him, we are what we are today,” hesays, before cheekily adding, “Maybe I wouldhave got a national medal but it would’vebeen difficult to become an internationalmedallist.”

And now that Mary Kom’s OlympicsBronze has come, Ibomcha wants anOlympic Gold. “But the mango doesn’t ripenin a day,” he says with a smile before headingback to the training hall. For the biggest manin the room, the fight continues.

L Ibomcha Singh, award-winning boxing coach,has trained scores ofnational and internationalmedal-winning pugilists— Mary Kom, being themost famous. But evenmore significant, saysDevjyot Ghoshal , is howhe has unleashed a boxingrevolution in Manipur

“FOR POORFAMILIES,BOXING IS AWAY TO ENSUREA GOOD LIFE”

Ibomchawith two ofhis femalestudents

Ibomcha points to the photograph of MaryKom in his register

Ibomcha with his band of boxers at the SAICentre in Imphal. Second to his left is MSuranjoy Singh, who has won severalinternational medals. But Ibomcha, hiscoach, treats him the same as the others

PHOTOS: DEVJYOT GHOSHAL