Missing home, Indian athletes in Czech Republic try their hand at making ''puri''

Tribune News Service
Patiala, August 19

Indian athletes, including sprint queen Hima Das and star javelin thrower Anu Rani, who are on a training-cum-competition stint in the Czech Republic, enjoyed cooking Indian food in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon.

Missing Indian food, Annu Rani and Hima Das made ‘puri’ while national record holder Mohammad Annas and javelin thrower Shivpal and coaches devoured the food.

Notably, the Indian athletes have been in Europe for the last four months — ahead of World Championships in September this year.

As always, Indian athletes are very traditional in their food habits. They cannot stay away from their favourite traditional food for long.

Shivpal, while talking to The Tribune over the phone, said that they were missing Indian food since long.  He said, “We were homesick, and missing our homemade dishes such as parantha, puri, and halwa. So, we all decided to cook something and puri was obviously very handy and easy to cook.”

Significantly, Indian sprinters Hima Das and Mohammad Anas have won a gold medal each in women’s and men’s 300m races respectively at the Athleticky Mitink Reiter event in Czech Republic on the current tour.