Anand Waghmare, 29, has been a fencing coach since 2010. Half a dozen of his students have participated in international level competitions and over a hundred are national-level fencers. For a greater part of last year, Waghmare had been making ends meet by selling fish. Since last month, he has added mangoes to his retail list.
 
Waghmare is among the handful of fencing coaches in Mumbai. Despite being an Olympic sport, it has largely been on the sidelines in India, losing out on government funds to potentially medal-winning sports like wrestling and shooting. Yet, in March this year, defying all odds, Chennai-born CA Bhavani Devi, 27, made history by becoming the first Indian to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. There’s no overestimating just how monumental this achievement is; most Indians barely know the sport. 

Dharavi resident Vaibhavi Ingle’s interrupted one-on-one training with coach Anand Waghmare has affected her performance. “My rank at the 2019 Senior Nationals Fencing Tournament was 16. At the 2020 tournament, I fell to 24,” she says. Pics/Pradeep Dhivar