In the past few years Indian sportspersons, like their western counterparts, have exhibited unusual interest towards telling their personal stories in the form of authorized biographies or autobiographies. While it speaks of the exceptional cultural gains that the autobiography has made in recent times, it also points towards the growing ‘market’ of sports as a whole. These life-narratives are not just restricted to the on-field achievements of players. Mary Kom’s life-story Unbreakable: An Autobiography is more than a personal narrative of punches exchanged in the boxing ring, it is equally about Manipur and the tribal Kom community she hails from.
January 2015, volume 39, No 1