Gandhinagar, July 29 — For years, people in his village did not call him by the name his parents had given him. They called him "Jhandu" – a nickname born out of tragedy, poverty and ridicule.
Today, that same name echoes across international arenas after 29-year-old para powerlifter Jhandu Kumar from Harnaut village in Bihar's Nalanda district won India's first medal at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, completing a journey that took him from selling vegetables and driving an e-rickshaw to standing on an international podium.
Jhandu claimed the bronze medal with a best successful lift of 190kg, finishing with 130.9 points. He opened the competition with a successful 181kg lift, earning 124.7 points, before improving to 190kg on his second attempt to move provisionally to the top of the leaderboard.
Chasing gold in his final attempt, he opted for 196kg, a lift that would have surpassed the Commonwealth Games record set at Birmingham in 2022, but was unable to complete it, settling for bronze.
The bronze medal is the latest chapter in a life shaped by hardship long before sport entered it. Kumar contracted polio when he was five years old, an illness that changed the course of his childhood.
His parents, who earned a living selling vegetables, spent whatever savings they had on his treatment. "Whatever money my parents had, they spent it on me. Nothing was left," he recalled during an interview with IANS.
Born as Avinash Kumar, he says the name by which India now knows him came from an emotional moment in his family's darkest days.
After exhausting their savings on his treatment, his father uttered in despair that "everything had become jhand (ruined)" because of the financial burden. People in the locality picked up the remark and turned it into a taunt.
"When I got polio, my name was Avinash Kumar. My father once said everything had become 'jhand' because all the money was gone. After that, people in society started calling me Jhandu Kumar. They would say, 'You have ruined everything.' Wherever I went, they shouted 'Jhandu Kumar' at me," he said.
The ridicule followed him into government offices. Kumar recalled visiting a block office where his official documents still listed his name as Avinash Kumar, while his friends outside called out "Jhandu".
Curious officials asked who Jhandu Kumar was, and when they realised it referred to him, the room burst into laughter. "It hurt. But then I thought something else. All these people, despite being busy with work, smiled because of my name. From that day, I decided I would no longer be Avinash Kumar. I would officially become Jhandu Kumar. Today, every document carries that name. Nobody calls me Avinash anymore, he told IANS.
His family's financial circumstances meant education took a back seat. Kumar studied only until Class 8. The school was far from his home, mobility was difficult after polio, and he eventually left school to help his parents at their vegetable stall.
"My parents used to give me Rs 20 or Rs 50 whenever they could. That was all we had. I started sitting at the vegetable shop when I was eight or nine years old," he said.
Sport entered his life almost accidentally. In 2016, after watching a Salman Khan film named 'Dabangg', he became fascinated with bodybuilding. There was no gym in Harnaut then, but when one finally opened about a kilometre away, reaching it became another challenge.
"I had no wheelchair, no vehicle and no tricycle. Later I received a tricycle from the government in Patna, and that is how I started going to the gym," he said.
His first visit left him unsure whether someone with a disability belonged there. "I wondered, 'How can I do this?' Then I convinced myself that only my legs were affected. My hands were strong. Why shouldn't I?" he said, smiling.
That determination quickly ran into another obstacle: nutrition. Protein supplements costing Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 were unimaginable for a family struggling to survive. "I used to save the little money my parents gave me and somehow bought one box of protein. I trained for 10 days, then stopped for 15 because I couldn't afford the diet," he said.
Even as he persisted, neighbours questioned his ambitions. Kumar said people rarely looked at him with respect, and the constant mockery only strengthened his resolve to prove them wrong.
His sporting journey initially began in para athletics rather than powerlifting. Coach Kundan Pandey encouraged him to compete in shot put and discus, where he won a state gold medal. Pandey then suggested that Kumar's physique was more suited to powerlifting.
Another turning point came when Harnaut's original gym shut down. Kumar travelled around five kilometres to another gym, where he met owner Gautam, who would become one of the most influential figures in his career. "He helped me with training, supplements and diet. My condition was poor, but he stood by me," Kumar said.
The pair later persuaded Gautam to relocate his gym to Harnaut's Chandi Market, giving Kumar a place to train consistently. Under his guidance, Kumar entered his first state para powerlifting championship in Sasaram in 2020, lifting more than twice his body weight to win gold.
His success continued at an able-bodied national event in Jamshedpur, where he again claimed gold despite weighing barely around 50kg. Yet medals did not solve his financial problems.
The vegetable business suffered a severe setback when an overbridge was built over the area where his family's stall operated, forcing them to relocate. Household income dropped sharply.
Determined not to abandon either his family or his sporting dream, Kumar started his own vegetable business with just Rs 5,000. Every day began at 4 a.m.
He travelled nearly 20 km to the wholesale market in Bihar Sharif, bought vegetables, returned to Harnaut to sell them until evening, and then headed straight to the gym. "My routine was fixed. Wake up at four, buy vegetables, return by eight, open the shop by nine, sell until four, and then go to the gym whether everything had sold or not," he told IANS.
The schedule brought in barely Rs 400-500 a day, hardly enough to support both the household and an athlete's nutritional needs.
When disputes over vending space forced him to shut the stall, Kumar stopped training for two months before persuading his parents to help him finance an e-rickshaw.
For six months he drove passengers, earning just enough to repay monthly instalments of around Rs 10,000. But the long hours behind the wheel left little energy for training. Once the vehicle loan was repaid, he returned to training, only to realise precious months had already been lost.
"If I had trained continuously, I would have been much stronger. Six months away from the gym means losing your strength. There was one thing inside me... stubbornness. I kept telling myself, 'I will do something. I will definitely do something," he said.
His breakthrough came at the 2022 National Para Powerlifting Championships in Kolkata, where he won bronze, his first national medal. The achievement earned him Rs 50,000 from the Bihar government and, more importantly, renewed belief.
"When I won that medal, my village started respecting me. It motivated me more than anything else," he said. Shortly afterwards, another financial crisis struck.
His business collapsed again, and he resumed driving the e-rickshaw. But with the 2023 National Championships approaching in Delhi, he made perhaps the biggest gamble of his life.
Unable to balance training and work, Kumar sold the e-rickshaw itself to fund six months of training, travel and nutrition. At the National Championships, he failed all three lifts. "I told my parents, 'If I win a medal, we'll buy another one.' I was completely broken. I thought everything was over. The shop was gone, the e-rickshaw was gone, and now I had failed," he emotionally said.
Instead of returning home immediately, he travelled to his sister's village, unsure what to do next. Fifteen days later came the phone call that transformed his career.
Rajinder Singh Rahelu, India's celebrated para powerlifting coach and Commonwealth medallist who had noticed Kumar despite his failure in Delhi, invited him to join the Sports Authority of India (SAI)'s National Centre of Excellence (NCoE) in Gandhinagar. "I asked, 'Sir, will it cost money?' He said, 'No. You just come here and win.'" Kumar told IANS.
Training under Rahelu changed everything. Kumar won silver at the Khelo India Para Games in 2024 before becoming national champion two months later.
Better facilities, structured coaching and support from fellow athletes gradually replaced the uncertainty that had defined his earlier years. Even then, money remained scarce.
He borrowed Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 from his parents to buy protein supplements, while teammates often shared nutrition products or contributed money when the family could no longer help.
Asian medallist Paramjeet Kumar and other teammates supported him with supplements and encouragement, allowing him to continue training.
The results soon followed. Kumar lifted 205kg to win the national title before breaking the national record with a 206kg lift in the 72kg category.
He went on to win bronze at his first World Cup in China, finished among the leading lifters at the World Championships in Egypt and added another international bronze at the Asia & Oceania Championships in Thailand before claiming Commonwealth bronze in Glasgow.
Despite becoming one of India's leading para powerlifters, Kumar says he still thinks about the years when his name invited laughter instead of applause.
Today, however, the name he once wished he could escape has become inseparable from his success. Asked whether he had ever considered changing it back to Avinash, he smiled: "No one calls me Avinash anymore. Jhandu Kumar is my name now."