Did Dangal get its facts wrong?

Aamir Khan's Dangal has been earning accolades and money at the box office, but a disgruntled voice has already been heard from Geeta's coach, PR Sondhi.

The Aamir Khan-starrer which has new actors — Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sanya Malhotra, Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar — playing his daughters is based on the life of Mahavir Singh Phogat. A wrestler who had to give up on his dreams due to financial constraints, Mahavir went on to train his daughters Geeta and Babita into world-class champions.

Mahavir himself is in awe of Aamir and has said no other actor could have done justice to the role. Geeta has said in the interviews that the film is 99 percent true to their real life. But is it really so? A disgruntled voice has already been heard in the form of Geeta’s coach, PR Sondhi. He coached Phogat sisters Geeta and Babita as well as the 2008 Beijing Games bronze medal-winning side. He has claimed that the role of the coach (essayed by Girish Kulkarni) is loosely based on him and is planning to sue Dangal makers.

Sondhi has clearly said nothing of the sort happened. In fact, Mahavir was very much there when Geeta won the medal. This is also mentioned in Mahavir Phogat’s authorised biography.

Going by the video of Geeta’s real match, she won it by 1-0, 7-0. That means Geeta was dominating over her opponent throughout the match and won the game in straight points. Unlike this real match, the film showed the reel game with scores 3-0, 4-6 & 6-5. That was obviously done to infuse twist and turns in the match and keep the audience on their toes.

While Geeta cutting off her hair right before her all-important match is an important part of the narrative, she didn’t have short hair in real life at that juncture. The video of the fight shows Geeta with long hair.