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Chandigarh, March 20: Bollywood’s new inspirational film on Milkha Singh promises to be an end-to-end sober affair comprising a dramatic documentation of the athletics legend’s relentless struggle and eventual glory-winning gold in the 1958 Commonwealth Games at Cardiff, Wales.

“This film will have none of my jokes,” Milkha Singh said with a chuckle, delighting in the memory of the many Milkha Singh jokes that still unfailingly evoke laughter. Bhag Milkha Bhag will span a 14-year period, from the fateful day Singh was witness to the brutal killing of both his parents during the Partition riots of 1947 all the way to the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics when he earned the sobriquet of the Flying Sikh.
For a man who hasn’t been to see a film since the days of Awara and Shree 420, Milkha Singh is delighted Bollywood has decided to do a whole film about his life. He has signed away the rights to his story for a mere one rupee in the earnest hope the movie will inspire India’s Generation Next.
The amazing tale has long moments of military life where the young athlete spent all his waking hours training to run faster than Jenkins — the gold medallist in the 1958 Commonwealth Games. “I took tips from Jenkins-ji on how to train, and from then on made it a point to sweat at least a bucketful every day. I was on top of the victory stand at the next games,” Milkha Singh said.
“The day I won, Panditji (then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru) was filled with pride. An emissary came and said, ‘The PM wants to know what he can do for you.’ Those days I did not know how to ask for things. I asked them to declare a national holiday in India and Panditji did it,” he said, evidently full of admiration for Nehru.
The septuagenarian athlete has a new joke. “Once I was a Flying Sikh, but these days I need a bit of help walking,” says the legend who put India on the world athletics map.

Asit Jolly