"Turbaned Tornado''

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Mann
Turbaned Tornado'', a biography of 100-year-old UK-based marathon runner of Indian descent Fauja Singh, was released in Britain's House of Lords.
The 114-page book, penned by journalist-cum-writer Khushwant Singh, captures Fauja Singh's zest for life and his invincible spirit.

Lord Anthony Young of Norwood Green formally released the biography of Fauja Singh, a world record holder marathoner in his age bracket, last evening.
The book traces the runner's roots and tries to capture his life's journey, understanding the impact of Fauja on the world around him.

For Fauja "impossible is Nothing", Khushwant Singh told the gathering.

Khushwant Singh, also the author of best-selling Sikhs Unlimited, a travelogue from UK to USA,featuring extraordinary Sikhs, told the gathering that he first met the world's half marathon runner in 2005 "when I was working on my first book, Sikhs Unlimited."

He said "Fauja Singh's story is no folklore. It is a true story of an old sikh man who started running at an age where many do not even reach and went on to achieve superhuman feats."
Born in Bias Pind, then a nondescript Punjab village on the present Jalandhar-Pathankot road, Fauja was the youngest child of his poor parents who bore four children.

Fauja, much to the dismay of his parents was not a blessed child. He was rather a non-starter, given that he started walking only at the age of five.
Given Fauja's health condition no one in the family gave him much chance at athleticism. So frail was Fauja in health, that he could barely walk a mile till the age of fifteen.

"My legs were so weak that I could not even walk a mile. Perhaps it was Almight's way of preserving them for later years," Fauja, who was present at the book release, said.

The book also has a telegraph from Queen Elizabeth II congratulating Fauja Singh on his 100th birthday on April 1, 2011.

In his Foreword, former Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh wrote: "Fauja Singh's unprecedented achievements mark a never before triumph of the human spirit and it makes me more than proud that I share with him a common heritage - one that is rooted in the fertile Punjabi hinterland and infused with a zeal that never gives in."
 
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