‘Narak se swarag’: how one family turned hell into a Commonwealth gold medal

5 min readUpdated: Jul 28, 2026 02:41 PM IST Sharmila Dhankar with her mother Saroj. (Special arrangement)Sharmila Dhankar still remembers the day in 2012 when her then husband, a drug addict, stripped her naked and threw her, and her two young daughters, out of their home in Gurkawas village, Rewari. Neighbours wrapped her in a quilt. Her parents, Jai Lal and Santosh, took her back to their village, Chithhrauli, in Mahendragarh. That was the last of it. On Monday night in Glasgow, the 40-year-old won India’s first-ever Commonwealth Games gold medal in para athletics, a season-best throw of 9.81m in the women’s shot put F57 final, ending a 20-year wait for the country in the discipline. She called her mother, her daughters, and her husband Ajit Singh to celebrate.“Mere ko nangi kar ke meri