Click to play videoLucknow Nineteen-year-old Rinku Singh is living what they call the American dream. The teenager's pitching skills have won him a spot on an American baseball team and a $100,000-contract.
Rinku, the youngest among his six siblings, grew up in a small town of Bhadohi in eastern Uttar Pradesh. For three long years he practiced javelin throw and lived in a government-owned sports hostel in Lucknow.
And it's this javelin throwing skill that won him the coveted baseball pitchers contract in the Indian leg of the American initiative, the 'Million Dollar Arm' baseball contest.
"I will gift a car to my father,” the jubilant teenager reveals his dreams for his father who toils as a truck driver to feed his large family.
“All the villagers are very happy and we always pray to God my son reaches his own destination. I am a truck driver but I always help Rinku to complete his dream," Rinku’s father Brahmdeen Singh says.
Rinku does not have a bank account, but now the banks are calling him.
“The banks are after me, and so is Income Tax,” Rinku says.
But it's not just about money; Rinku is looking forward to travelling to America in a month's time, where he'll spend a year learning baseball. For now though, Rinku is basking in his moment of glory.
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