CWG 2026: Jhandu Kumar, ex-vegetable vendor and e-rickshaw driver, writes his own destiny with a bronze

The bar was loaded, the arena hushed, and somewhere inside Glasgow's Armadillo Arena, a lifetime of hunger sharpened into a single thought for Jhandu Kumar.

"I had only one thought going through my mind," Jhandu, who hails from Harnaut in Bihar's Nalanda district, would later say.

"I just have to lift it."

He not just lifted a 190kg, but went beyond. He opened India's medal tally at the 2026 Commonwealth Games after two fourth-placed finishes in other events gave fans little to cheer for.

Jhandu bagged a bronze in men's heavyweight para-powerlifting, starting in Group B.

For a man, who was disabled by polio at birth and spent his entire life being underestimated, the moment was too huge for words.

"Today, it feels very good," he said, with the bronze medal firmly around his neck. "There is so much happiness that I cannot express it in words."

To understand why this medal means so much, you have to go back to the streets of Bihar, where Jhandu was, by turns, a vegetable seller and an e-rickshaw driver before becoming an India international.

In 2022, competing at the National Championships while running his vegetable stall, he won a bronze medal, training around the demands of the day's earnings.

He would later have to shut his shop after being forced to vacate the spot for a government project.

With barely any money to sustain himself, Jhandu took loans to buy a Toto or an e-rickshaw to make ends meet. But the long hours behind the wheel made it impossible to eat right or train properly.

With the 2023 National Championships, he made a painful choice.

"Since I was struggling with my diet and the 2023 National Championship was coming up, I had to sell the Toto out of compulsion just to compete in the tournament," he recalled.

That tournament ended in heartbreak as he failed all three of his lifts. It could have been the end of the story.

Instead, it became the turning point when 2004 Paralympics bronze medallist and coach Rajinder Singh Rahelu spotted something in him.

"He encouraged me and boosted my morale," Jhandu said.

"He said, 'Jhandu ji, we will select you for SAI; you will do well, we have faith in you.'"

A selection letter followed, and in 2023 Jhandu arrived at the SAI National Centre of Excellence in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. It is here that his career transformed

"It is due to them and their discipline that I have reached these heights," he said.

The rise was rapid. A national record of 205 kg in 2025, which was broken again a week later at the Khelo India Para Games with a gold-medal lift of 206 kg, followed by continental bronzes in China and Thailand.

Jhandu had established himself as one of India's best para powerlifters in the men's heavyweight division.

For a boy who once sold vegetables on pavements, and a young man who sold his only vehicle to chase a dream, the bronze around his neck in Glasgow is proof that he isn't defined by the cards life dealt him.

Jhandu Kumar wrote his own destiny.