January 24, 2021
When the legendary boxer Mohammad Ali met Brojen in 1985, he told him “You are the King of the Channel and I’m the King of the Ring, but I think your achievement is even greater than mine.”
Swimming is not a sport that Pakistan is renowned for. However, over 60 years ago a Pakistani swimmer established a set of world records, that shook the world. The swimmer was the amazing and versatile Brojen Das, the only swimmer to have won Pakistan’s Pride of Performance Award for his achievements.
In Bengali the word Brojen means king of the heavens. Brojen was born in December 1927 in the village of Kuchiamora in the Munshiganj region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). His father Harendra Kumar Das was a supplier for the army and ran a cement trading business.