sikhpride

1. The 63-year-old Chawla lost his eyesight at the age of 40 and ran his first marathon in 2004. At the time, he was 48-years-old and participated in 7 km dream run. It was the legendary former Indian cricketer Kapil Dev, who escorted him, which encouraged him a lot to continue the sport. Chawla hails from Malad, a suburb located in North Mumbai.
2. Chawla’s undying spirit has led him to appear in several media outlets in the past years, and yet again he is headlined for his feat of completing the Tata Mumbai Marathon on January 20.
3. It all began rather unassumingly. Amarjeet Singh Chawla was at a family function, in Asansol, when he received a text message from the National Association for the Blind (NAB), an invitation to be part of the seven-kilometre run at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) 2004, of which NAB was to be a beneficiary.
4. “My wife and I visited NAB to enquire about the event and then and there I decided to go for it, just to prove to the world that blind people aren’t incapable”, shares Chawla.
5. His bread and butter came from the small lottery shop that he ran at Malad in Mumbai, while his wife ran a small insurance service business.
6. There’s been no looking back since then. His life started getting punctuated by half marathons, the punctuations falling closer and closer together with time. When he completed his 25th half- marathon, at Pune, he thought of setting a target for himself. He became fixated on completing 101 half marathons. “101 is a shubh number”, he says. Curiously, his 101st half marathon, slated for 20 January 2019, will be at the 2019 Tata Mumbai Marathon (formerly the SCMM), where it all began. His 100th half-marathon was Mumbai’s Powai Run on 6 January 2019.
7. Besides, Chawla has also completed several treks in the Himalayas and Sahyadri ranges that have taken him to the Sar Pass, Saurkundi Pass, Kedarnath Trek, Valley of Flowers, Jaisalmer Dessert Trek and Dalhousie to name a few. He has also completed the famous 300 km Mumbai-Shirdi rally walk. In 2009, he became the first blind person to scale the Dolma Pass (Mount Kailash) at 19,830 feet in Tibet. “I could’ve tried for the Everest base camp trek, but I didn’t have sufficient funds, nor a proper escort”, he rues. Then there are his exploits in swimming – Chawla won the 50 m freestyle gold at the ‘All India Swimming Competition for the Disabled’ in Mumbai in 2004.

Awards:

1. Best Sportsman of the Year, 2014 (By National Sports Club for the Blind, Mumbai)
2. Star Achiever, Best Sportsman, 2015 (By AnaamPrem, Mahableshwar)
3. Marathi Gaurav Puruskaar, Blind Marathon RunnerAward, 2016 (By M.K. VichareTrust, Mumbai)
4. Star Believe Award, 2017 (By Star Sports)
5. International Sikh Acheiver’s Award (Sports), 2017 (By SatSri Akal Charitable Trust, India)
6. Mumbai Mayor’s Award for Divyaang (Mahapore Gaurav Puruskaar), 2018 (By Mumbai Mayor’s)
7. UInspireMe Inspirational Runner Award 2019 (By Pioneer Management Consultant Pvt. Ltd.)
8. Mumbai Road Runner’s Award for Inspirational Challenged Runner of the Year 2018 (By Mumbai Road Runners)

Book Features:

1. Unstoppable by Padmaja Shastri and Venkatraman Pichumani
2. They Inspire by Bijay Nair
3. Livemint Online Magazine by Shail Desai

Video Features:

1. Brand promotion video of 1947 drinks – 2018 WhatIf Heroes – Brand promotion video of WhatIf drinks – 2018
2. Inspiring Story of AmarjeetSjnghChawla by The Tribal Box – 2018
3. Star Sports Believe – 2017
4. Be Zinda Inspiration by Be Zinda Group – 2017
5. SCMM Believe Story 2017 by Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2017 and Procam International – 2017
6. Divyang National Anthem by FadooTV – 2017