The internet signal kept disappearing. 

The day The Better India spoke to Janmoni Konwar, she was preparing to leave for the Sports Authority of India (SAI). 

Seventeen years old, the young karateka climbed towards a spot where her phone could catch a network. On the other end, her coach, Susanta Das, helped coordinate the call.

Then Janmoni appeared on the screen.

“Tomorrow I am going to SAI, so this is a special moment for me,” she said, breaking into a smile.

It was a happy moment for a teenager about to take another step in her sporting career. 

But Janmoni’s journey to that moment has been anything but ordinary.

Just days earlier, she had stood at Delhi’s Talkatora Indoor Stadium and won a gold medal at the National Karate Championship, held from 7 to 9 August. Competing in the Ashihara category, Janmoni had travelled from a flood-hit village in Assam to the national stage and returned with the medal she had been working towards for years.

When she came home, the celebration took place against a very different backdrop.

Her family was still living under a tarpaulin.

Their house in Bhogdoiporia Gaon in Assam’s Jorhat district had been washed away in floods the previous month. The family’s fishery had been damaged. Ducks and poultry had been swept away. The buffaloes had to be moved to safer ground.

For Janmoni, the gold medal did not mark the end of a struggle. 

It became part of a family’s attempt to rebuild after losing its home, and a young athlete’s determination to continue chasing a dream that had begun when she was five years old.

On 19 July, floodwaters entered Bhogdoiporia Gaon.

An embankment breached around 150 metres from Janmoni’s house, allowing water to rush into the village. The family had to leave their home and move to the embankment.

Their losses extended beyond the house.

For nearly three years, the family had been raising fish in a fishery. The plan had been to sell the fish and use the money to help fund Janmoni’s trip to Delhi for the National Karate Championship.

The flood disrupted that plan too.

“The fishery was connected to her........

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