Her Tears, Moved Him to Do Something Like Nothing He Had Ever Done!

It was the tears that forced Sushobhan Mukherjee's hand. Sarita Devi Laishram had fought her heart out in the semi-finals of the 57-60 Kg boxing competition at the Incheon Asian Games, against the South Korean fighter Ji Na Park. Yet, as she stood by the podium to collect her bronze, Sarita could not stem the free flow of tears. She believed, along with about 1.2 billion Indians, that she had been robbed of a possible gold due to biased refereeing.

Sushobhan, a marketing and advertising professional based in Singapore, had not seen the bout. Nor had he witnessed  Sarita's meltdown during the medal ceremony. However, when twitter lit up with an angry explosion of messages, he was moved to look. First at the match and then at the dramatic medal ceremony, where Sarita Devi accepted her bronze medal only to put it around the neck of her Korean opponent.



That moment he decided something needed to be done, "something substantial and meaningful. Because, I knew Sarita Devi's career was finished. There was no way she was going to survive that. I read up about her background and realized she came from a very poor family. Boxing is all they had. So I decided to try and raise some money for her. It seemed a much better thing to do, than simply vent my anger with a tweet or a FB post."

Timing, Sushobhan realized, was everything. Sarita's meltdown happened on October 1st, a day after her semifinal bout. October 2nd was the beginning of a long weekend in India. A big chunk of his target demographic would be away during that time. He, and his partner Sangita Sridhar, moved fast. First getting through to Milaap.org. Sushobhan knew the founder of the crowd funding platform for social causes so the normal formalities for setting up a campaign were set aside. Milaap also waived its fees so Sarita Devi got most of whatever was raised.

When the campaign went online, Sushobhan had not even contacted Sarita Devi. But as he explained on the fund raising page, he was confident of reaching out to her through his contacts in Manipur and in sports. They eventually did manage to reach her husband who gave them the bank details to transfer the funds to.

The campaign went live on October 1st 2014. Sushobhan and Sangita promoted it via their personal social media contacts. The money came in, along with the skepticism. "Why are you raising money for Sarita," one asked, "did she ask you to?" Another felt it was an insult to raise money for Sarita Devi. Many others doubted if the money would actually reach Sarita Devi. Here Milaap's credibility helped. The organisation held the funds raised and only transferred them direct to Sarita Devi's account after verifying that it was indeed her account.

Meanwhile, things were moving fast in Incheon as well. The Asian Games federation, the Indian Olympic and Boxing associations, and the International Boxing Association all put pressure on the boxer to apologize for her behavior and accept her medal. Even her more celebrated senior partner Mary Kom, publicly criticized Sarita for her actions on the podium.

Sarita caved. She unconditionally apologized and accepted her medal. With that done, Sushobhan knew the campaign had run its course. The moment had passed. The two days of hectic fund raising and parlaying naysayers had netted a total of Rs 1,68,862. Not a small amount considering the duration of the campaign, or the low key promotion it got.

This money would eventually reach Sarita direct from Milaap. She would also be banned by the International Boxing Association for a year for her tantrum. She is still serving the ban.

Meanwhile, the two days left Sushobhan feeling positive about his ability to make real change. He has set his sights on an ambitious project that will go online in May this year. He now wants to help girls in remote areas of India have easier access to schools. He believes giving them bicycles will increase both their mobility and their upward mobility. He believes he can use social media for real change. He believes anyone with a passion can make a difference. Most importantly he believes one person can make a difference. And he is going to continue doing so.