'Amazon of Aligarh': Google Doodle pays tribute to India's first woman wrestler Hamida Banu
New Delhi (PTI): It was on this day in 1954 when Hamida Banu defeated famed wrestler Baba Pahalwan in just one minute and 34 seconds. While Baba Pahalwan deemed it fit to retire from professional wrestling, Banu's career expanded to international arenas and her victories reported across the globe.
Commemorating Banu's victory and to pay tribute to her as "India's first woman wrestler," Google on Saturday put up a colourful doodle on its homepage.
Born into a family of wrestlers in the early 1900s near Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, Banu grew up wrestling, winning over 300 competitions throughout her career that spanned the 1940s and 1950s at a time when women's participation in athletics was strongly discouraged.
Banu, however, competed with men anyway, and issued an open challenge to all male wrestlers, wagering her hand in marriage to whoever defeats her, Google wrote in a post.
Banu's success in international matches gained her further acclaim. One of these matches was the one against Russian woman wrestler Vera Chistilin, who she defeated in under two minutes.
Having made newspaper headlines for years, Banu came to be known as the "Amazon of Aligarh".
The bouts she won, her diet, and her training regimen were widely covered.
According to a BBC report, she weighed 108kg and was 5ft 3in tall.
"Her daily diet included 5.6 litres of milk, 2.8 litres of soup, 1.8 litres of fruit juice, a fowl, nearly 1kg of mutton and almonds, half a kilo of butter, 6 eggs, two big loaves of bread, and two plates of biryani," the British media outlet reported.
Reuters noted that she slept for nine hours and trained for six.
A "trailblazer of her time," Banu not only fought fellow wrestlers but the norms of her times.
"Hamida Banu was a trailblazer of her time, and her fearlessness is remembered throughout India and across the world. Outside of her sporting accomplishments, she will always be celebrated for staying true to herself," Google's note read.
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9 killed, 15 injured as bus catches fire in Haryana
Gurugram(PTI): At least nine people were burnt alive and 15 injured when a moving bus caught fire near Tauru in Haryana's Nuh district in the early hours of Saturday, police said.
The incident occurred around 2 am on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway. The bus was carrying around 60 people, all residents of Punjab's Hoshiarpur and Ludhiana, who were returning from pilgrim towns of Mathura and Vrindavan. All of them are relatives, police said.
"Nine people -- six women and three men -- were killed in the accident. Fifteen people were injured and have been hospitalised. All the injured are stable," said Inspector Jitendra Kumar, Station House Officer, Sadar Tauru.
"The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. A probe is underway," he said.
A local resident said that after noticing the fire, some people chased the bus on a motorcycle and asked the driver to stop. The locals also informed the police and fire department.
