 She is one of five children of brick-kiln labourers in a rural village in southern Tamil Nadu state; she overcame malnutrition as a child to become a middle-distance runner.Her family could not even afford a television and watched Soundarajan's Doha race at a neighbour's house.Her mother and father had to go to another town to work in a brickyard, where they earned the American equivalent of $4 a week.