In her memoir Witness, wrestler Sakshi Malik describes how self-consciousness about her muscular arms shaped the clothes she felt comfortable wearing and how feminine she felt. Her account traces a gradual change: she became more willing to try styling and sleeveless clothes, but some preferences, including full sleeves, remain.
Why Malik felt self-conscious about her arms
In an excerpt from Witness, Malik recalls looking at her muscular build alongside women she saw on film sets and feeling that she looked masculine. She says comments about her arms at wrestling camp added to her discomfort. At one point, she wondered whether she could have been given a body without “such big arms?”
Malik describes her biceps as “14-inch-thick.” That is a figure from her personal account in the excerpt, not an independently measured value or a statistic about women wrestlers.
The concern was not simply about appearance: Malik says she felt awkward, less confident and less feminine. She does not present this as a clinical account or as representative of other wrestlers or women.
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How it affected what she wore
Malik says she avoided clothes that exposed her arms and felt more secure in well-constructed Western clothes. At functions, she often preferred a shirt or coat over an outfit that left her arms uncovered. For her brother’s 2015 wedding, she asked for a full-sleeved top to wear with her lehenga.
She also describes finding sleeveless and traditionally feminine outfits difficult to wear. The choices she recounts show how her discomfort followed her into public occasions, not only into the training environment where people had commented on her arms.
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Trying makeup, styling and a sleeveless dress
Malik says she learned makeup and styling largely on her own, with help from Nayantara. After the Olympics, she wore a sleeveless dress on The Kapil Sharma Show: other clothes provided for the appearance did not fit or suit her. Her husband, Satyawart Kadian, encouraged her backstage.
Malik recalls that wearing the dress felt more stressful than the physical injuries she had endured. The moment was a step toward trying something she had once avoided, rather than proof that her unease disappeared.
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What changed—and what did not
Later, Malik says, she modelled several outfits for a wedding and became more comfortable with her body. “I’m a lot more comfortable with my body now,” she writes. But she also notes that some things remain: she may still choose full sleeves. Her account is about becoming more at ease without treating every old preference as something she had to abandon.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.About the memoir
The excerpt was published by Scroll.in on October 28, 2024, and is from Witness, by Sakshi Malik with Jonathan Selvaraj. The memoir ranges across Malik’s childhood, wrestling career, Olympic win, injury, self-doubt and public dispute with the Wrestling Federation of India administration. Its publisher, Juggernaut, also describes the book as addressing body image and other aspects of women’s wrestling in India.
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