She drags a ship, grins and bears it

MANGALORE: This feat will make anybodybite their teeth in awe. Imagine a girl dragging a 400-tonne ship with bareteeth! She could be the perfect model for a toothpaste company! SeemaBadauria’s teeth glitter and they are strong too. On Thursday,Seema dragged the behemoth tug ‘Varahi’ 15 metres in the watersinside New Mangalore Port, to enter the ‘Guinness Book of WorldRecords’!Seema, a resident of Dhatia in Madhya Pradesh,arrived here under the direction of Union minister Shatrughan Sinha andinvitation of port-in-charge chairman G.J. Rao. For the past four days, she hadbeen training for the feat and on Thursday, performed it much to the awe of thesparse crowd. Daughter of Kailashi and Santoshi, she is the youngestof five children. The poor family barely makes ends meet, but Seema has grownbeyond that hunger to achieve what she dreamt of. The girl, aged around 20, isstudying her intermediate. What started as a mere hobby by pullingcars at the age of 10, progressed to jeeps, buses and trucks. Her final frontierwas dragging a ship and she performed it admirably too.Sincechildhood, she had always dreamt of performing something unique, and is nowsatisfied with her achievement. It was through the ‘JanSatta’ editor who wrote about her, that Seema grew famous, drawing theattention of Sinha and Rajasthan chief minister Vasundara RajeScindia.The New Mangalore Port in-charge chairman honoured her withRs 5,100 in cash and a plaque for the feat. Seema does not aspire topull anything bigger than this in the near future, but will think about it aftershe makes it into the record books.