Nagaon: As one approaches "No. 3 Kandhulimari" village from Dhing town, 140km east of Guwahati, a small, soggy meadow to the left of the country road slopes off further to the left.

Local farmers have dug a tank on its lower half. Their cows graze on the field's upper half for most of the day.

Twice a day - early in the morning before the cows come, and in the evening after they have left - it serves as the practice ground for 18-year-old Hima Das, the latest sensation in Indian athletics.

It's from this swampy pastureland that she rose to become the first Indian to win gold in a world track event, nailing the 400m at the World Under-20 Athletics Championships in Finland on Thursday.

"She began practising here when she was nine," said her father and "coach" Ranjit Das, a 46-year-old farmer, on Friday at his modest home in No. 3 Kandhulimari.

Ranjit never trained as an athletics coach, his lone sporting achievement being a stint as a footballer in the village team.

Yet he was the only trainer Hima had till two years ago, when she attracted the state authorities' notice and began receiving intermittent professional coaching.

On Friday morning, some 11 cows were grazing amid a drizzle on the water-logged 20,000sqft field, at least a metre below the road level even at its highest stretches. But to Hima, her grassy patch in Kandhulmari remains an inspiration rather than a handicap.

"The ground in our Kandhulimari is the best playground I have seen," she had said when a reporter asked her about the Australian practice facilities she had encountered during the April Commonwealth Games, where she had finished sixth in her event.

Since April, Hima has hardly been home, training mostly in Sports Authority of India complexes in Delhi and Punjab. But when she came for a couple of days in early July, she did not forget her old practice ground.

"When Hima is in Kandhulimari, she practises on this ground twice a day," said local primary school teacher Bibhuti Das. "But I don't know how she will train after she returns from Finland - the monsoon rain has turned the ground into a bog."

Almost the entire village had gathered before the TV set at Ranjit's home on Thursday evening after Hima called her mother Junali a little before 9pm to say her event would start in two hours.

"But a four-hour power cut prevented us watching her triumph," Junali said.

Hima's uncle Sunaram said the turning point in Hima's life came when she met Samsul Hoque, a teacher at Dhing Nobodoy Vidyalaya, two years ago while she was studying at Dhing Public School. Hoque introduced her to the state athletic body officials who select candidates for national events.

Hima, now a student at Dhing College, missed her Class XII board exams this year because of the Commonwealth Games.

"Hopefully, she will take the exams next year," one of her teachers, Biman Hazarika, told The Telegraph.

If she does, she will have to spend a considerable time in her village, continuing to train on the local playground.

Since the Commonwealth Games, the villagers have submitted three petitions for the ground to be "renovated", without any success so far.

"We made a plea to state BJP president Ranjit Das in April; then followed it up with two petitions to Nagaon deputy commissioner Biswajit Pegu and Koliabor legislator Keshab Mahanta," said Suresh Das, a resident.

The villagers want the ground raised and levelled, the drainage improved, and every other necessary upgrade carried out to make it fit for an international athlete to train on.

"Nothing has been done to improve the ground in the past 30 years," said Sanjib Das, a villager. "Official records show that the local Bilotiya panchayat under the Batadrava development block has spent Rs 40 lakh on two rural job guarantee scheme projects in the name of renovating the ground since 2007, but all that remains on paper."

Pegu, the deputy commissioner, said the state government had been informed about the petitions.

THE RACE

How Hima came from behind and bagged the gold in Tampere, Finland