Yam Kumari Kandel, GPJ Nepal
Rajani Shrestha deadlifts while Ajasara Dhungana and Sanjeev Shrestha look on at a gym in Kathmandu.
KATHMANDU, NEPAL — Rajani Shrestha exercises at a gym near Baneshwor Height, a neighborhood in Kathmandu, as she prepares for a major bodybuilding championship. As the 42-year-old lifts around 50 kilograms (110 pounds) in a deadlift, her veiny arms and neck muscles bulge out. A woman with “muscles like a man,” she says, is a very rare sight here.
The men bodybuilders in the club stare at her. “I don’t care what anyone says or does. I must win the competition anyway,” Shrestha says. As the day progresses, she is the only one left in the club. For Shrestha, there is no time to waste. On this August weekday, it’s only a month to go till the 55th Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship.
In 2019, Shrestha won silver medals at the 12th South Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship, held in Kathmandu, and the 53rd Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship, in Batam, Indonesia. The National Sports Council also recognized her for excellence.
Shrestha does not fit the normative definition of an ideal woman in Nepal. In a society where a thin body is considered beautiful, women bodybuilders with brawny bodies are labeled “men” and are often the target of ridicule and derision.
Attitudes about gender are slowly changing, however, thanks in part to women’s participation in sports like bodybuilding, says Bidhya Bhattarai, a former sociology professor who is now a member of the House of Representatives. “Nepali society is realizing that if women’s lives are like men’s, they are suitable for sports too. How one performs in the game is becoming more important than how one looks.”
It wasn’t very long ago — in fact, less than a decade — when it was difficult to even get five women up on stage, says Dinesh Rajbhandari, vice president of the Nepal Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation. “Women were just not allowed to get bodybuilding done because of comments that they looked like boys,” he says.
Families would withdraw their support as soon as they saw the two-piece costume resembling a bikini that the athletes are expected to wear, says Nirmala Maharjan, who was the first woman to represent Nepal in the World Bodybuilding Championship, at the 2015 event in Bangkok.
When Shrestha appeared on stage in costume for the first time, her husband’s family derided him for “spoiling his wife.” Her neighbors and some relatives ridiculed her “big” body; some told her a woman is supposed to be “soft.” Unfazed, Shrestha says through bodybuilding she is “introducing Nepal to the rest of the world.”
Before she got into fitness, Shrestha says she was living an ordinary life like any other woman in the country. She got married at the age of 16 and became a mother at 17.
For her, bodybuilding was not really a dream. It was more of a serendipitous love. When she was 36, Shrestha developed 22 lumps in her neck. Doctors suspected cancer. There was an endoscopy, a biopsy, several tests and a long wait. The days went by, and she lost hope. While the couple was giving everything a try, her husband, Samir Shrestha, suggested she go to a fitness center, hoping that exercise would cure the lumps. “It was nothing short of a miracle,” she says. The neck lumps vanished within three months of starting the gym.
Seeing how her body reacted to the training and how hard she was working, her trainer encouraged her to compete in the prestigious Mr. Kathmandu Bodybuilding and Ladies Fitness Championship in 2017. And just like that, eight months after joining the gym, Shrestha won her first gold medal.
Fitness gave her “a new lease on life,” she says. And the gold motivated her to strive for more. She worked out regularly for a year in preparation for the Mr. Himalaya National Open Bodybuilding Championship in 2019, and again won a gold medal. Despite its rather masculine name, Mr. Himalaya is a national competition for both men and, since 2016, women.
Women have competed in bodybuilding games in Nepal since 2005. In 2015, a separate classification was created for women. Rajbhandari, from the Nepal Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation, says despite women’s growing interest in fitness, only 13 have been among the top bodybuilding competitors since 2005.
Becoming a bodybuilder requires lots of time and hard work. Preparing for competitions involves discipline and exercises that target each area of the body. Participants also must go on extreme diets to create the needed levels of muscular development, muscularity and definition. Shrestha’s daily diet includes oats, a crate of eggs, a kilogram (2 pounds) of chicken breast, broccoli, beans and six scoops of protein supplement. Although these foods are “very expensive,” she says they are important for building muscle.
In preparation for this competition, Shrestha had to go on a strict diet that included eliminating salt. “I want to win the competition and wave my country’s flag,” she says.
And so, she did.
It’s Sept. 5, and Shrestha has just won Nepal’s third gold medal at the 55th Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship in Kathmandu. With the number plate 206 clipped to her waist, clad in a pink two-piece, Shrestha finishes first in bodybuilding among women weighing up to 55 kilograms (121 pounds), ahead of India’s Sabita Bania. Shrestha, with her chiseled physique and bowling ball biceps, smiles her camera-ready smile and warmly hugs her opponents. As she waves the country’s flag, the Nepal national anthem resonates in the stadium.
As Shrestha leaves the stage, there is a swarm of people waiting to congratulate her and take photos with her. She smiles nonstop and gets teary-eyed.
“After Rajani won national and international awards, people started to recognize her as a bodybuilder, not a woman,” her husband says.
But then it’s time to leave the stage.
Bullet Sherpa is a security guard at the 55th Asian Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Championship stadium and sees Shrestha and other women practice. “Women look good when they have a silky and smooth body. They [bodybuilding women] don’t look anything like that,” he says.
Bhakta Bahadur Khatri, who went to the competition to watch his son compete, says that seeing women’s full bodies makes him “uncomfortable. Foreign clothing is unsuitable for Nepali culture. … It is acceptable for a male to wear only underwear. It’s great that women are building their bodies, but their clothes are inappropriate for Nepali culture.”
These aren’t the only battles women like Shrestha face.
Shrestha points to the disparity in what women and men are paid in prize money, which makes her sad. While many athletes, including men like world champion Mahesh Maharjan, believe that the prize amount should be equal for all genders, there is still a long way to go.
“It has been difficult to provide financial security to players, policy-wise,” says Kumar Prasad Dahal, spokesperson for the federal government’s Ministry of Youth and Sports. “The National Sports Council is also not organized. Disbursement of awards is not timely. There should be a system of training and awards to motivate them.”
Sumitra Chaudhary, a member of the National Sports Council, says council policy bars discrimination based on gender. Since new competitions are being registered in Nepal, it is challenging for the council to manage all of them, she says.
To be motivated to compete, a person needs due compensation, Shrestha says. “When there is government support, the players are motivated.” In her case, she says there has been none.
