THE DANGAL IN THE JUNGLE, PART 1
The site of my first dangal was Seoni, India, the birthplace of Rudyard Kipling’s character Mowgli, and the fight forever will be known as the “dangal in the jungle.”
I began the adventure with Zhengtong, my wrestling teammate from Shanghai University of Sport, when we embarked on a 30-hour jaunt from Shandong, China, to Delhi, India. The three-and-a-half-hour time difference between the two nations only added to our fatigue. We arrived in Delhi, slept three hours, then got up and drove eight hours to Chandigarh for training.
Our coach Deepak Pehlwan explained that constant, lengthy, cheap and uncomfortable travel like this is a fact of life for Indian wrestlers. During dangal season, they try to compete as much as possible to earn money. That often entails wrestling one day and traveling to their next bout
