Sonika Kaliraman is a sports woman who represents India in the game of wrestling. She is the daughter of legendary wrestler Master Chandgi Ram. She married to Siddharth Malik in February 2009, a NRI, settled in California, USA. Siddharth is also a former national level champion of martial arts in USA.
Sonika took up the inspiration of pursuing wrestling as a career from the famous Laila Ali, the daughter of Mohammad Ali. Her father also showed her the pictures of Karnam Malleswari, a south Indian weightlifter who won a gold medal in Olympics. Sonika and her brother Jagdeep are quite famous wrestlers on national level. Both of them had acquired their genes and congenial environment from their father and mentor Chandgi Ram. Initially Sonika was apprehensive about adopting wrestling as a career as the sports is considered mainly as male-dominant. But after some time she made up her mind and followed her father’s dream.
She was a member of Indian squad in Asian games held at Doha. Though, she didn’t manage to win any medal but played her games impressively. In her wrestling career she had clinched 16 national level titles. She had also participated in various international wrestling championships. She secured 3rd position at Dave Schultz International wrestling tournament held in United States of America in the year 2002.
Sonika Kaliraman also participated in various TV shows in India. She featured in ‘Khatron ke Khiladi’with Akshay Kumar and other 13 participants in the show. The show was based on adventurous activities and Sonika completely enjoyed the show and gave a tough competition to other contenders. Recently, she had been an inmate of ‘Big Boss house’ which is also a TV serial.
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However, she moved out of the show in the middle due to her advanced pregnancy stage and the growing tensions inside the house. She had also featured in ‘Zor ka Jhatka’ which was anchored by Shahrukh Khan on Indian national TV. Again it was an adventure sports programme. Sonika participated in the show with full zeal.
Sonika was supposed to participate in Beijing 2008 Olympics. She was also undergoing training for the same reason. But due to some problem with her coach she couldn’t make it to the Olympics.
Sonika is an inspiration for the young girls of the nation who aspire to take on wrestling and other of beat games as full time career.