Asiad silver medallist Santhi Soundarajan labours at brick kiln

Bangalore - Irony doesn't get any more cruel than this. Santhi Soundarajan won a silver medal in the 800m at the Doha Asian Games in 2006, then lost it after she failed a gender test. Today, she works as a daily-wager in a brick kiln, slogging eight hours under a scorching sun to earn Rs 200 every day — the wage paid to women labourers.

Contrast this with Caster Semenya of South Africa, also a middle-distance runner, who lost the gold she won in Berlin World Championship 2009 after she failed a similar gender test. The 21-year-old Semenya will be her country's flag-bearer at the London Olympics. Her outraged nation rallied around her. South Africa fought to safeguard Semenya's dignity and position in world sports. The result: last year, the International Association of Athletics Federations revoked the ban on her.

Unfortunately for Santhi, no such help was forthcoming for her from her own countrymen. Banned by the Athletics Federation of India from participating at any level, the then 25-year-old's name and feats were struck off the records. She was simply abandoned as she reeled under fate's bitter blow.

Her hands, once raised in triumph, now wield a shovel or knead a crude mixture of powdered jelly stone, clay and water to be shaped into bricks. "My hands ache and burn all the time. The skin has peeled off, there are boils all over," Santhi told TOI on Monday.

Following the ignominy of a gender test, the manner in which Santhi's name and achievements were erased from the athletics records, Santhi lost all hope to the point of attempting suicide. "I've been on this job three months now. In the initial days, I could do nothing with my hands after work. I could neither eat nor use my fingers to grasp any object. They would be tender and swollen. The situation is no better now," says the athlete from Kathakuruchi, Pudhukkottai in Tamil Nadu.

Her parents, Soundararajan and Manimegalai, too work at the brick unit run by her uncle for a collective daily pay of Rs 500. They have a family of six.

Santhi was unemployed since 2010 when she resigned from the job of a coach at a paltry salary of Rs 5,000. A modestly successful coach, athletes she trained won medals at national meets and at the Chennai marathon. But the Tamil Nadu government's refusal to confirm her employment -- she was on contract - made Santhi realise she had to look elsewhere for a job.

She cannot pursue the NIS diploma course that could guarantee her a better position as coach. The graduate has no records as athlete to speak of, all of them snatched from her after the Doha episode. Also, she cannot confidently answer the question of gender that figures prominently in the NIS prospectus. She fears the ridicule it would entail. Over the last three months, Santhi had also approached the district administration for a job.

"I met the district collector and told him that I was even ready to work as a peon. He wasn't bothered. He said since I wasn't registered with the employment bureau, I didn't stand a chance. I told him about my feats as an athlete. I pleaded with him to consider my family's plight and give me a job on compassionate grounds. My plea fell on deaf ears," Santhi said.

Not that Santhi didn't attempt to fight to understand why she had been banned. "Though I had lost all interest in life, I tried to meet Kalaignar (M Karunanidhi, who was CM then) and Amma (Jayalalitha, the present CM) and explain my plight to them. But I wasn't granted permission," Santhi said.

The prize amount of Rs 15 lakh that she received from 'Kalaignar' was used to fund her siblings' education and for her sister's marriage. "My brother is still studying." Two of her sisters are employed. "But the situation is such that I have to earn to make ends meet," says the woman who, fights off bouts of depression only because she can't see her family in distress. "Sometimes I think of committing suicide. Or go away where I cannot be traced. What wrong have I done? Why am I being punished for something I have no control over?" she says.

Despite everything, Santhi still nurtures the ambition of representing her country in athletics again.

With the International Olympic Committee mandating that a more civil method of testing a female athlete's hyper-androgenism (excessive production of testosterone), she feels she stands a good chance to make a comeback. But before all that, Santhi wants a job.