I Am Fauja

A windy day on top of a skyscraper, Fauja Singh and his son take out their roti and daal and begin sharing a meal. During the middle of their lunch the manager calls for one of them to help with a heavy cement load, Fauja is about to go but his son stops him and tells him he will go instead. Moments later a scream is heard and a crowd of construction workers gather, as Fauja looks closer he sees' that his son has been crushed by the truck.

Fauja Singh is a boy from Punjab who has one dream: to go to Canada and become a professional runner. He’s therefore thrilled when he’s arranged a visa to Canada with his mother. Life in Toronto however, turns out to be anything but what he imagined. His new boss is a racist tyrant and Fauja quickly realizes his dreams are over when he’s required to work 7 days a week with no time for training.

20 years later, Fauja is accidentally thrown into the middle of the city marathon and feels the thrill of the sport he left behind years ago, he immediately signs up for the next race and starts training. But Fauja’s joy won’t last long... In a typically life shattering move, his mother dies from a heart attack, more determined than ever, Fauja quits his job and starts training full-time. It pays off... After a grueling five-month period of isolation, during which Fauja regains all the confidence he lost as a boy. Fauja enters the Malton Marathon and wins: breaking a world record.

At 99 years old Fauja Singh has run dozens of Marathons, around the world as a professional athlete. In the family room, his trophies and medals are proudly displayed. Fauja still gears up his sneakers and prepares for an early run. In a candid interview onset after a commercial by Adidas, he confesses that through the good times and through the hard times it’s the discipline of running that helped him conquer the battles of life. “When I took up running, it was like meeting god himself.”