How a newspaper ad changed Assam boxer Barbi Gogoi's life

Guwahati: Newspaper advertisements are not just an ideal base to eat your evening snacks. Sometimes, they change lives. Just ask Barbi Gogoi. A 2018 newspaper advertisement inviting budding boxers for selection trials caught young Barbi Gogoi’s attention, and her life changed forever.

Until then, she had been satisfied with her brief stint at kickboxing at remote Kaloogaon village, about 20 km from Sivasagar district headquarters. Raised by a widowed mother, Barbi, now 19, lost her father at 12, and took up sports to distract herself from the tragic loss.

Since then, she has come a long way and now finds herself among the most promising names in the state. Barbi recently returned with a bronze in the 57 kg weight division from the second North East Olympic Games in Shillong.

Barbi Gogoi celebrating her bronze medal at the 2nd Northeast Olympic Games 2022 in Shillong

Also Read | Fists of fury: For Gourav Mazumdar, a boxing medal at NEOG is just reward

A student at Dispur College in the city, Barbi has established herself as one of the emerging pugilists after stepping into the senior division with a gold medal at the 3rd BFI East Zone Elite men and women’s boxing championship, held at Namchi, Sikkim.

For the youngster, boxing came as a natural choice, considering the lesser number of competitions and recognition for kickboxing at the national and international levels. But hailing from a remote village with hardly any exposure to the sport and without a formidable push, boxing was a distant dream for this pugilist before a newspaper advertisement came as the turning point.

“Sports was a means to get over my father’s loss, who passed away when I was in the sixth standard. I still remember, my father passed away, a day before my elder brother. He, now employed with the Delhi Police, was about to appear for his 10th board exams. It wasn’t easy for the family, but we somehow sailed through,” she told EastMojo, recalling the unfortunate sequence of events.

Barbi Gogoi with her mother at their residence in Sivsagar

Also Read | Lovlina, Shiva, Hussamuddin to lead boxing roster at National Games

“No one in the family has any association with any sport, and it was on my insistence that my mother took me to the kickboxing academy. Even my second brother has completed his MBA, but I always wanted to build a career in sports…Thankfully, my mother, a teacher, understood me and backed my choice,” she added.

“Having said that, after the initial few months as a kickboxer, I found out that there weren’t many competitions in the sport, something which didn’t exactly discourage me but somewhat took away the kind of enthusiasm,” Barbi shared.

“It was during this phase when I came across an advertisement for selection trials in a local daily. And witnessing the craze over boxing in our region, I decided to appear in the trials, and got selected for a stint at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) Golaghat centre,” she said.

After joining the SAI centre, Barbi found instant success in the form of a bronze medal at the junior state championship before adding the silver lining to her nascent career with a second-place finish at the All India Inter-SAI junior nationals in the same year. She also reached the quarterfinals of the junior national boxing championships in 2018 before asserting her dominance with a gold medal in the 2019 edition of the junior state boxing championship held in Bongaigaon.

Boxer Barbi Gogoi (sitting, third from left) along with the rest of the Assam team during a tournament

Also Read | Sikkim pugilist Pemlaki dares to dream big with ‘family’ support

Her stint at the SAI Golaghat centre ended at the strike of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 before she made her way to the SAI boxing training centre in Guwahati. After the Covid-19 induced break, Barbi announced her arrival in the senior category with a gold-winning spree, bagging the top prizes at the senior state boxing championship in Duliajan, and followed it up with another at the 3rd BFI East Zone elite boxing championship. A bronze at the North East festival in Imphal added another feather to her emerging career.

And on Tuesday, Barbi shone at the 57kg trials held at the SAI centre here for the upcoming senior women’s national boxing championship, slated in Bhopal from December 12.