Vijender fights today, Jeetu and Akhil by his side

“Boxing appeals at a very primal level,” he says. “It has all the essential elements that appeal to you, at a slightly deeper level. It’s hand to hand combat. The action is bell to bell, you cannot back down for a second. Therefore, the kind of bravery this sport requires as a standard is different from other sports. Besides character and courage under fire, boxing requires the attributes of other sports too: fitness, agility, reflex. It needs a big heart.”

Beijing 2008 has been the coming out party for Indian boxing — three boxers (Vijender Kumar, Jitender Kumar and Akhil Kumar) made the quarterfinals and tomorrow afternoon, Vijender fights a bout for a spot in the 75 kg final. Their story is all the more captivating for its distinctive markers. The trio, along with a fourth boxer at the Games, Dinesh Kumar, are from a boxing club in Bhiwani. With an equally engaging fifth boxer, A.L. Lakra, they have shown the capacity to enthrall, to be the men who take their sport’s popularity to the tipping point.

It has to do with the “ethos in boxing”, says Matthews, watching athletes at the Olympic village race to the souvenir store as the date of departure nears. “Boxing has a code of conduct. You conduct yourself in a specific way.”

Take the five boxers here, he says: “They feed off of each other. Heaps of times they have been down. They motivate each other. It’s the kind of sport in which you get weeded out of the system if you don’t have a big heart. Boxers are surprisingly sensitive people, caring, compassionate. It’s a different brotherhood. Whatever cost to self, they will help their friends.”

For instance, he adds, look at Akhil. “If Jeetu or one of the others needs him, he will drop everything. These guys can’t be selfish. It’s what I call the old school. This is why they are still very grounded, very down to earth. They won’t get carried away.”

Our fascination with India’s nascent assertion in the most violent of sports may actually boil down to this, he suggests: “In a world where morals and structure and responsibility are getting eroded, these guys lead the way in showing how to conduct yourself.”

Having worked with tennis players (Sania Mirza) before and now also working with shooters (Abhinav Bindra) and badminton players (Saina Nehwal), Matthews says he’d sometimes giggle when he first met the boxers in Bhiwani.

He found that there is a hierarchy in boxing, and there is a way that things have been done, and that way endures. Sometimes he’d be told off by Akhil, who’d explain that this was the method of his predecessors, and so it must be now. For example: “Training’s about to start. A senior will find he’s forgotten, say, his wrist guard. A junior will be sent to the dorms to fetch it. It’s a way of saying, when you are here you will have certain privileges and certain responsibilities.”

This relationship reaches beyond errands: “If Akhil were to say to Jeetu (Jitender), don’t play your bout on a certain day, there wouldn’t be a discussion. Because Jeetu believes Akhil knows what’s best for him. It transcends logic.”

The brotherhood extends to competitors too: “When you get on the bus, the atmosphere transcends competition. You won’t have competitors communicating with each other in other sports. When you’ve spilt a little blood with each other, the ice is broken.”

Matthews is acutely conscious of the local context for the boxers. “In Bhiwani, guys are putting down cricket bats and picking up boxing gloves,” he says. “If sport embodies something greater than self, cricket has been that sport for most of India. But in this environment, the same sentiments exist for boxing. It gives them a sense of achievement and self-worth that they may not get in other areas of life.”

That is the context in which Akhil works, he notes: “They help each other out. Akhil, whatever he has, materially and intellectually, he is more than happy to part with. He’s continually giving of himself. He will make an excellent coach one day. It is a lot easier to follow the captain into battle when he’s led the way by example. That’s what a lot of young kids need each day.”

So, who’s your Akhil, you ask the 27-year-old. “Subodh Kumar of Rohtak,” says Akhil. “Smart hard work and luck. If you don’t have both, cannot achieve. He didn’t have luck.”

They met in the hostel, and initially Akhil was not too impressed by his senior. Till he sustained an injury, and Subodh looked after him. “I can’t forget that,” says Akhil. “After that he cared for me like a father. He would even wash my clothes. He gave me money. He is the single most important person in getting me here. I didn’t have a bike, he’d take me 7 km each way to practice.”

It was Subodh, notes Akhil, who taught him that if he looked after his juniors, his own game would improve. After all: “When I teach them tactics, it’s revision for me.”

It does transcend logic.