Even her feat of winning the silver by defeating three-time Kick Boxing World Champion Vanessa Bellegarde of Canada, who was also a professional kick-boxer in the flyweight category, went largely unnoticed in her native town Shimoga.

Of course, kick-boxing is a martial arts based sport event not very popular in India.

Her visit to Bangkok itself was in doubt till the last moment as she did not have Rs 60,000 to make the trip. She could manage Rs 30,000 of her own while some well wishers in Bangalore gave her the balance amount on condition that she would repay it on her return. After her return, they took the silver medal from her saying that she can take it back afterclearing the dues.

Pushpa is the first woman to represent India in Muay Thai boxing at the international level. Muay Thai is a variety in kick-boxing with physical contact and its victors are decided on knockouts.

When she was chosen to represent India after she came third at the nationals, held at Thiruvananthapuram in November last, she underwent rigorous training under her tutor M H Abid at Bangalore for five months. She learnt the basics in kick-boxing from her coach at Shimoga S V Chandrashekhar, who represented India in the same sport at the same championships in 1996 held at Bangkok.

Pushpa, 21, is the last daughter of S B Nagaraj and Parvathamma. Nagaraj is an employee in the Library section of the Shimoga municipality while her mother is a housewife.

While doing the second year PUC, Pushpa decided to learn karate. She joined the Shimoga unit of Star International Karate Organisation (SIKO) headed by M H Abid at the state-level. Chandrashekhar is the local coach.

When she was told about herselection for the Bangkok championship, she was elated but soon her joy evaporated. ``When I approached the Deputy Commissioner for help he simply said Muay Thai is not a recognised sport. So no help could be given from the Government,'' she said and added that some physical education directors working in colleges in Shimoga even commented that the claim to participate in the International was a hoax. "The superintendent of police even asked me to demonstrate what I had learnt. I did. But he never helped me.''

While the government did not help, Jayalaxmi of Shikaripura offered Pushpa Rs 500 and encouraged her to participate in the internationals. Circle Inspector Shivakumar gave Rs 800. ``These two incidents made me to believe that there are people in the society who still encourage sportspersons like me and I decided to participate in the internationals.''

She went to local MLA, K S Eswarappa, who not only offered her money but arranged to get her money from other sources too. Bhadravathi MLA, M J Appajihelped her. Rudramma, physical education director and B S Nagaraj, principal of KNMNC where she is studying convinced the college management to pay her Rs 10,000. Even her college staff contributed for her tour.

She is elated by her victory but unable to share her joy with her friends and relatives by showing the silver. She is still looking for some source to arrange for the money.

But these difficulties have not deterred her from aiming to win a gold in this alien sport. ``This sport is expected to be included as an event in the international Olympics to be held in 2004 and I want to win the gold,'' she says.