Arati Saha was born in 1940, and learnt to swim in the Hooghly river
in Calcutta as a child. At the age of eight, she competed in the National
Championship in Bombay, winning silver and bronze medals. When she was
eleven years and ten months, she was selected as one of the first four women
to represent independent India at the Helsinki Summer Olympics of 1952.
She was the youngest Indian Olympian-a record that stands till this day.
By the time she was eighteen, Arati was looking for a fresh challenge-she
decided to swim the English Channel. This marathon endurance swim had
been completed by others before her, but no woman from India, indeed from
Asia, had done so yet. Arati trained in the lakes and pools of Calcutta, once
swimming for sixteen hours at a stretch. Overcoming many odds, she went to
England where, undaunted by one failed attempt, she tried again-till she was
successful.
This is the inspiring story of how a seemingly ordinary girl set her eyes on
impossible dreams and achieved them with her incredible hard work and
talent. In the process, she swam her way into history.
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