Dr Kaushal Bhardwaj is getting steamed up. His daughter may be an adult. She may be an Olympic medalist. But how, he asks, could she get herself a tattoo?
We're seated in Bhardwaj's clinic in Cincinnati. Bhardwaj specializes in internal medicine and acupuncture. He knows the effects of a tattoo. He's not being prudish. His concern is purely physiological.
"It's embarrassing as I know the tattoo business is very dangerous," he said. "People don't understand. I told Mohini it's not good as it'll affect you physically, emotionally. There's a formation of a scar. The energy won't flow there. I saw the one ring and she knew I would see it. She tried to hide it. It's the worst thing she has done."
A small fountain sits atop his desk, the Eastern kind meant to relax people. Bhardwaj moved to the US in 1976, after living in Canada for several years. When he started advocating alternative medicine, he said there was opposition from physicians, particularly from Indians in Ohio, and he fell out with them.
"I have to do what my conscience says," he said. It's a trait he and Mohini share. He's glad she's as stubborn as he is. But in 1996, after the Olympic trials, he lost faith.
"After 1996, I wasn't very interested," he said. "In the beginning, I was disillusioned. I saw the politics."
But his daughter renewed her quest, and he saw she was serious.
"At the trials, she looked really good. Emotionally, physically, mentally strong, and very determined."
"In the beginning we used to be a little tight. Her mother would get more uptight. Some parents turn away, they don't want to see it. I was never that way."
Bhardwaj traveled to Athens to watch his daughter. He enjoyed his time there -- "Everybody's so friendly" -- but found it hard to spend time with her. The team officials do this to make sure the families don't put bright ideas into the athletes' heads.
"If she didn't do well they probably wouldn't get a medal. On the floor, she should've got a bronze. But once they gave the score they won't change it. She was gipped, even at the Olympics."
We drive to his home, a large brick structure built in 1910 in the East Walnut Hills neighborhood. Two years ago, he and wife Indu separated. He now lives with his two dogs.
When Bhardwaj heard about Pamela Anderson funding his daughter's Olympic dream, he was embarrassed. He had been sending her money but had no knowledge of her financial condition.
"It was a big shock to me. She's not the kind of kid who can throw away money, but she didn't tell me, 'Dad, I'm running out of money.'"
It has worked out for the best, he thinks. During the Olympics, he heard from his sister Sadhna, a principal in New Delhi. She told him all teachers at her school had been watching the Games and cheering Mohini on.
"The kids, once they found out she was Indian, also cheered. Mohini hasn't ever gone to India. But they still claim her as an Indian. They've offered to have her over there and give her a big welcome. That was a totally different feeling."
Indu Bharadwaj recalls a dinner she had, years ago, while visiting her daughter in Houston. Mohini was in high school and Indu spent the evening with Raj Bhavsar's parents. At the time, she said, they were trying to determine his future in gymnastics.
"Raj's parents asked me if he should continue," said Indu, as she sat in the lobby of her yoga center, It's Yoga, located in a hip area of Cincinnati. "I told them yes, he should, that he'd get discipline, he'd get a college scholarship. I told him to hang on. I said to him he'd be a great role model to Indian gymnasts. I told them discipline doesn't let them run around and get into trouble. Especially in the US, where you can get into trouble easily."
While Raj stuck it out, it's too early to say how many other people are staying with gymnasts or simply taking it up because of Mohini's success. There was a time, said Indu, when the very idea upset her daughter.
"She used to get a lot of fan mail. She didn't like to answer it," she said. "She felt uncomfortable. She said, 'I don't want to be a role model.' But she's becoming better about being famous."
Indu is of Russian descent, but her father was an Indophile. When 18, she met Swami Satchidananda and took to Hinduism, raising Mohini and her son Arun as vegetarians. Indu teaches Sanskrit, and for years, the family had a guru, Raj Shastri Sharma, who died several years ago.
Mohini doesn't discuss her spirituality publicly. But her best friend from childhood, Amber, also an instructor at It's Yoga, recalls how they would practice yogic sleeping together as kids, under Indu's supervision.
"Seeing how physical Mohini was influenced me to teach yoga," she said.
Indu recalls the day, years ago, when she realized there was something different about her five year old. She had enrolled Mohini in a gymnastics class in Indianapolis, where the family lived at the time. A friend of Mohini's had been doing it and Mohini had been nagging her mother to enroll her.
A few months later, the coach took Indu aside and told her that Mohini had to be placed on the team. Indu couldn't believe what she heared, until she watched her daughter stand up, roll backwards, press her hands down and do a headstand, before pushing off the floor and landing back on her feet.
Her eyes light up at the memory. "She was five."
Much has happened en route to today -- challenges, successes, setbacks -- some of which Indu prefers to leave unspoken. She recalls a T-shirt that was made some time back. On one side it had the Nike swoosh, on the other a phrase that Mohini has turned to, one that sums up her philosophy. ''No Excuses, No Regrets," said Indu. "If she ever wrote a book, that's what she would probably call it."
Pictures: India Abroad Person of the Year 2004
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India Abroad Person of the Year 2003
A community honours one of its own
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Image: Rahil Shaikh
