“You ruined my life. You don’t even let me sleep.”
Those were the tearful words seven-year-old Ishank Singh cried out when he was forced to get up at 5am for a grueling training session. Mother’s answer left no room for compromise: “If you want to be different from the world, you have to do what the world doesn’t do.”
For middle-class parents in India, pushing a child to elite, world-first heights requires a radical level of sacrifice. It seems as if the mother is chasing ministry approval, or the father has resigned himself to a stable career just to anchor his children to an undefined goal.
This is not a story about reaching “Swimming Mount Everest”. It is the story of parents who have chosen the lonely, expensive and emotionally draining journey of an unknown sporting platform – sacrificing the normality of the household so that their children can conquer the ocean.
REFUSAL BACK DOWN
In a country where competitive sports infrastructure is sparse, a significant shift is taking place. Parents are swapping the standard pool lanes for the boundless unpredictability of the open sea to help their kids really ‘stand out’.
A second-year Delhi University student from Gurgaon, Haryana, Kamya was never built for the ocean. By her own admission, her body type defied the traditional swimming archetype.
“Everyone said I was small, bulky and not built for it,” she says. She was a pure sprinter, built for explosive races in the 50m pool. But when a devastating ankle injury ended her pool career in 2023, she fell into a dark space and was ready to quit altogether. Her father Sunil Bhardhwaj refused to release the water. Kamya Bharadwaj is a student at Delhi University. (Image: Special arrangement)
“I remember that day vividly,” recalls Sunil, his voice straining. “We were at the Sports Injury Center three to four times a week. Kamya was holding this huge pain inside her and she was in agony. One day, as I was sitting right there in the medical center, the dam broke. We both sat there and just cried. She cried her heart out, she felt light. From that day on, I told her, ‘Beta, look what we have to do,’ we have to do it.”
He completely shifted her horizon towards open water. When Kamja completed the grueling 81 km Murshidabad river swimSunil, the longest in the world, did not see the completed journey; he saw the springboard.
He looked at the notorious Palk Strait and raised the stakes: a two-way national record from India to Sri Lanka and back.
“I told my father that I can’t do two-way traffic,” admits Kamja. “It was my father who believed. He said we wouldn’t settle for just one transition.”
NO TIME TO WAIT
While father Kamya operated with raw emotion, seven-year-old Ishank’s mother, Manisha Sinha, approached the ocean with the thoughtful, unyielding calculation of a former athlete who refused to let her child be ordinary.
An engineer and marathon runner from Ranchi, she noticed Ishank’s obsessive affinity for water when he was a toddler. He was five years old swimming five kilometers a day. But the Indian sports system did not offer any competitive space for a child of his age, strictly enforcing the nine-year age limit for tournaments.
“Because of the age criteria, the local pools wouldn’t accept him,” explains Manisha. “But his stamina was limitless. So we decided: Why wait for a system? Let’s put him on the open water now so that when he’s legally old enough to compete, he’ll already have the world record in his pocket.” Ishan Sinha with his parents. (Image: Special arrangement)
For three months, the family entered a bureaucratic battleground, chasing clearances from the Sri Lankan government, the Indian Navy, the Coast Guard, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs, requiring the personal intervention of the Jharkhand Defense Minister just to secure a date.
Financially, the maternal grandparents pooled their lifetime earnings to fund Ishank’s expedition. The financial gamble was staggering even for the Bhardwaj family, requiring nearly 10 million rupees, but the real cost of the transition was much higher than the money.
HORRORS OF DARK WATER
On April 12, at 1:30 p.m., when Kamya jumped into the ocean, the diesel fuel discharged from the ships reacted with the protective grease on her skin, causing burns to her entire body.
She started screaming. However, with the help of ointments, she swam through it and arrived in Sri Lanka at 10.35pm before turning back into the pitch black towards India.
However, the great darkness brought with it another disaster. Medusa brushed against her ankle and paralyzed her with her sting.
“I stopped floating. I couldn’t kick,” Kamja recalls. “I called my father.
Sunil watched helplessly from the deck as his daughter froze in the dark water. Kamya Bharadwaj swam all the way to Sri Lanka. (Image: Special arrangement)
“I totally panicked,” he admits. “I swallowed my pride and told her, ‘Beta, if you feel like you can’t do it, just come back.’
But she looked at him and said, ‘No, Dad, I’m not coming back. Even if I die here, I will not stop.’ Her resilience was fueled by pure respect for her father, a refusal to let his years of sacrifice go to waste.
The medical team administered her medication and she dragged herself across the ocean for the next hour using only brute upper body strength. But more than drugs, her father, who cracked jokes and teased her about her “Little Fit Fish” Instagram handle, gave her the strength to push herself beyond the limits.
Eighteen days later, on April 30, at around 2 a.m., a violent storm lashed the Sri Lankan border and violently shook the vessel with a seven-year-old child on board.
“That was the only time I felt real terror,” admits Ishank’s mother Manisha. “Looking out at the dark, choppy sea made my heart sink. For a second I panicked as a mother, wondering what on earth I was putting my child through.”
But at 4 o’clock in the morning, the very seven-year-old child, without a hint of fear in his eyes, jumped into the black, turbulent sea, only to conquer the world at the behest of his mother.
For almost ten hours, Ishank swam against the punishing back current. But because a child his age can easily lose focus in the utter emptiness of the ocean, his coach swam alongside him in a kayak while his parents kept shouting from the lifeboat to keep him from getting swept away.
BUSINESS COMFORT FOR SIZE
When Kamya and Ishank landed on Indian shores, shattering records, their parents had a stunning top of the world.
“I was speechless,” says Sunil, the emotion raw. “Tears were streaming down my face, pure tears of joy. I felt on top of the world.” A sentiment that resonated with Ishank’s mother.
Kamya and Ishank’s families are part of a new generation that sees things in a completely different way. They make up their own rules to make sure their kids really excel.
Instead of looking at the dangers of the ocean and backing away, these parents see whitewater as the ultimate classroom for teaching real hard work.
“If you want your child to make a name for himself that the whole world will hear, you have to match his efforts by completely giving up your own life,” explains Manisha proudly. “You can’t raise a child by sticking to your own comfort. You have to be in the mud building their future right next to them, going beyond what’s safe and easy.” Ishan Sinha and his parents embrace after a tough trip. (Image: Special arrangement)
Ishank will leave the excitement of the open water behind for now as he and his mother watch the Olympics and make their nation proud.
For Sunil, this way of thinking completely changed the direction of his life. Years ago he left his stable career to manage his children’s sports full-time, run small side businesses just to pay for the pool and finance the huge costs of global channel swimming.
Next up for Kamya are the English and North channels, which will cost over Rs 30,000,000 for a swim. And while she’s doing everything she can to find a major corporate sponsor, her father isn’t willing to stop, even if it costs him every penny he owns.
– The end
Issued by:
Amar Panicker
Published on:
May 17, 2026 10:35 AM IST
