New Delhi, July 20 -- My enduring memory of Sushil Kumar, the wrestler who won two Olympic medals and became one of India's greatest sporting icons, comes from a time before his spectacular downfall as an accused in the murder of another wrestler (for which he spent four years in jail as an undertrial before being granted bail in March.

It comes from that magic hour in an akhada, when, between the long, frenzied mat sessions in the morning and the never-ending, arduous physical conditioning workout in the evening, there is a happy lull-a time for food that always tastes delicious because the body is craving it, for meaningless banter (my memory is from pre-social media days), and extremely well-earned sleep, or in the words of the wrestl...