Over five decades ago, when swimmers from Rajasthan participated in the National Swimming Championships, competitors from other states would look at the Rajasthan squad in awe. They wondered how a desert state like Rajasthan could produce swimmers.
The swimming pool at the century-and-a-half-old Mayo College, often called the 'Eton of the East', served as nurturing waters for aspiring swimmers.
Despite being an old-style 25-metre pool, it produced numerous National champions, including Rima Dutt, Manjari Bhargava, Anil Ganju, Meenaxi Ganju, and Glenda D'Souza, each excelling in their respective categories.
Rima Dutt, a successful swimmer, represented India in the 1966 Bangkok Asian Games and became the first recipient of the prestigious Arjuna Award in swimming.
Following her, Manjari Bhargava won the Arjuna Award in 1974 for being the National 3-metre springboard diving champion in the women's category.
Manjari, who passed away on November 5 at the age of 68 in Pune, where her son resides, battled a brain tumor for over a year-and-a-half.
Like Rima, Anil and Meenaxi Ganju, she trained in the modest Mayo College pool, which was far from the 50-metre Olympic standard size. the pool seemed inadequate, but the passion of these swimmers enabled them excel.
Manjari wasn't even a student at Mayo College; she attended the St Mary's Convent school, which had no swimming pool. She began swimming at Mayo College's pool as an outsider when just ten years of age, paying a fee to access it.
Rajlaxmi, a coach from the National Institute of Sports, recognised her talent. She initially trained as a swimmer and within her first year became junior champion in various events in 1967, setting records that amazed even seasoned athletes.
Under Rajlaxmi's guidance, Manjari transitioned to diving, where she excelled at the national level. Mayo College had a three-metre springboard.
As her coach trained her in diving, she overcame her initial fear and mastered the sport. Springboard diving requires strength to depress the board and skill to perform acrobatic moves mid-air before heading into the water.
"Manjari learned the art of diving and understood the scoring system. In diving, the median score is used for each dive, with the middle three scores determining the synchronisation grade. Those scores are then summed and multiplied by 0.6, which is further multiplied by the dive's degree of difficulty," says Suresh Mathur, a former Mayo College teacher and Rajasthan diving champion.
Manjari excelled in complex dives, like the reverse somersault in a pike position, earning high scores at the National Championships, adds Mathur.
At just 12-and-a-half years of age, Manjari, competing against older athletes, won gold in diving at the 1968 National Championship in Kanpur.
She continued her winning streak from 1970 to 1974, securing the women's diving gold medal each year and breaking her own records annually.
"I used to train with her alongside my brother, Anil. We, the trio from Ajmer, excelled nationally. While Anil and I competed in swimming events, Manjari focused on diving. We trained under very basic conditions," says former National champion Meenaxi Ganju.
"Our swimsuits, made of old cotton, would balloon up in the water, creating drag!"
Manjari's skills were further honed by Bhanwar Singh, a former National diving champion who became a swimming coach at Mayo College after serving in the Indian Navy. With Singh's guidance, she improved by attempting complex dives that earned her high scores, which established her as the queen' of women's diving in India.
In 1974, she was in top form, leading the Indian team at the Indo-Sri Lanka meet in Colombo and winning her event -- the only woman to do so. That same year, she was selected to represent India in the Asian Games in Tehran. However, due to financial constraints, the government cancelled the team's participation, deeply disappointing Manjari.
Having achieved significant milestones and winning the Arjuna Award, she shifted focus to academics, earning a postgraduate degree in history with first-division marks from the prestigious Government College of Ajmer, securing fifth rank at Rajasthan University.
She went on to work as a history lecturer until she married a merchant navy engineer and eventually settled in Mangalore, where the couple started a food container business.
Manjari showed remarkable entrepreneurship, becoming a distributor for Tupperware, an American food container company, and training about 1,500 women to sell the products. Under her mentorship, these women significantly improved their incomes. Her passing left a void among her followers in Mangalore.
Until her death, she campaigned for pension from the Rajasthan government, as all Arjuna Awardees were entitled to a monthly pension of Rs 30,000. Despite her continuous efforts, her case remained pending for over four years. She passed away disheartened by the government's neglect.
