MEERUT: In Rampur, a city better known for its royal past, a group of young men has turned remnants of that history into something else. Disused courtyards, locked playgrounds and Nawabi-era structures aren’t tourist spots – they’re practice grounds. For nearly two decades, a group of self-taught athletes has used these overlooked spaces to train in parkour long before most people here knew the word. Some of them would later carry these moves into Bollywood. Aman Kumar, who trained with the group, moved to Mumbai and began working in films. “I’ve done stunts in ‘Baaghi 4’, ‘Sultan’, ‘Devara’ – stuff like that,” he said. “Directors like working with parkour artists because we don’t rely on wires. We know how to land, how to adapt to real locations. There’s more control, less need for editing around mistakes.” ‘Started off by copying Jackie Chan, got to know much later parkour was a sport’ It began in 2007, when Mujahid Habib, then a teenager, realised the jumping, swinging and vaulting he did for fun had a name, and a global community. “We used to give our moves random names, copying stunts from Jackie Chan movies,” he said. “Then we saw Hrithik Roshan do similar jumps in ‘Dhoom 2’, and my friend Waseem told me it was actually a sport, parkour. That’s when I saw it as something bigger.”Habib kept practising on staircases, rooftops, drains using whatever was available. In 2009, he formed Team Leonine with five others. “We used to go out at 5am,” said Aamir Zameer Khan, a founding member. “We trained on the Kosi riverbank as the sand helped with landings. Then we moved to Nahid Ground. It was always locked, so we started jumping a 10-foot-wide drain to get in.”Parkour also gave them a reason to explore their surroundings differently. “We began looking for places that could push us – rooftops, old buildings, broken structures,” said Hassan Khan. “Some thought we were up to no good. Others would stop and watch. A few gave us fruit or water. It was never the same reaction twice.”They moved through Rampur, trying to read the city physically. Every alley, gate and rooftop was a chance to test technique, timing, nerves. At first, people didn’t know what to make of them. Some thought they were trespassing. Others warned them to stop. “A few even threatened to call the police,” said Aamir. “But some people got it. They’d bring chai or snacks. A fruit vendor once handed me a guava after watching us train all morning.“By 2013, Habib’s work had started getting noticed. That year, he won a national parkour competition in Mumbai sponsored by an energy drink brand. The prize took him to Greece, where he saw his first international event. “That trip changed how I thought about what we were doing,” Habib said. “We had started without knowing others were doing the same. It made everything feel connected,” he added.
