Big ideas from inside the ring

There are no fireworks, nor is there a themed background score when Hyderabad wrestler Mettu Shiva Krishna walks. But that doesn’t make him any less a star than the ones on TV. A 17-time state gold-medallist, five-time South Indian gold medallist and two-time national gold medallist, Shiva’s body of work speaks volumes about his love for the sport, that was ingrained into him thanks to his family.

His father, Mettu Shanmukh, runs the Veer Maruti Vayashala akhada (training ground) where Shiva first showed interest in the sport in 2003. Winning multiple laurels since he first stepped into the ring, Shiva’s fame around his neighbourhood in Nampally grew, making the sport famous in the area.

“Every kid nowadays wants to become an engineer, but everyone around our neighbourhood keeps asking us to take them on to train at our akhada,” he says.
And this is where Shiva and his father stand out — the two also support kids from lower income families so that they can make a career for themselves.

The kids, Shiva says, inspire him to do so — “There’s a kid, his name is Durga Prasad. He travels around 10 kilometres to the akhada by 5 am every day. By 8 am he goes off to work to deliver gas cylinders the whole day. Again, from 5 pm to 8 pm he practises at the akhada.”

With each students’ expenses going up to as much as Rs 20,000 per month, Shiva trains about 60 students at a time, with the whole training process taking up to eight years to turn them into world-class wrestlers.

And while he knows his work is appreciated, Shiva says that extra help is needed. “As long as the wrestler blood runs in our family, this akhada will not close. I want my own kids and their kids too to learn wrestling. We’re not thinking about just ourselves — we want to bring in laurels for our country too.”