kaju katli gulab jamuns golgappas pizza akanksha vyavhares core is not merely making up for a lost diwali after having subsisted on boiled chicken boiled eggs and fruits for two sweaty months the petite 15yearold weightlifter has returned home to manmad with a round goldplated indian license to eat round silvercoated indian dessertsblocking out the pain in her injured left elbow the softspoken teen protege of her moustachioed uncle and coach praveen vyavharelifted 60 kgs in snatch 70 kgs in clean and jerk and 139 kgs in all to create three national records in the under40kg weight category at the recent khelo india youth junior senior national ranking womens weightlifting tournament in uttarakhand i also won the best lifter trophy says the gold medallist who took a selfie with her hero mirabai chanu at the eventmanmads akankshawhose lifes first barbell was a 5kg pvc pipeis among the many strong women from developing maharashtra who updated their social media profiles soon after descending from the modinagar podium between october 28 and november 2 hailing from rustic pin codes where the sport continues to be mired by misconceptions if not poverty and conservatism the players returned to hometowns where their medals alter the weight of motheaten perceptionsmy father didnt want me to join the sport says ahmednagarbased 19yearold ba graduate yogita khedkar whose jowarsackheaving arms hauled a sevenkg handbag into the overhead cabin when she sat on a plane for the first time on october 29 this year three days later the same arms hoisted over ten times that load twice to attain new national heights kitted out in her selffunded rs 20000 peachcoloured sneakers the 84kg middle child of a soleearning agricultural labourer mother from chinchpur ijade villagelet a 78kg barbell raise her eyebrows in snatch and a 105kg rod fold her lips to earn a goldif the gold medal she first won at a statelevel championship in 2019 won yogita her paralysisstricken fathers grudging approval her recent national medal in bhubaneshwar got her an admission into a sports authority of india camp at bangalore whichplush with mutton biryani massagers and saunasseemed to contain all that her college gym in pathardi district lacked when she had first set foot in the college gym as an eleventhgrader wearing fulllength track pants yogita had lifted a 20 kg bar girls are supposed to begin with 15 kgs but i was the only girl in that gym says yogita who had approached veteran local powerlifter pravin cholmare for training after watching a districtlevel weightlifting tournament in pathardi as he trained her the four boys at the college gym would do catching theyd hold the weighted plates at each end of her barbell they were like brothers says yogita around the same time in another ahmednagar suburb called savedi komal wakale was silencing the relatives who tried to talk her out of weightlifting saying it was the preserve of north indians with medalsmanmadwhere weightlifting sisters akanksha and diya vyavhare answer to the nickname champion praveen