Sixteen-year-old Shirin Shaikh is here for the state football team selection trials but it was Fashion Street that was on top of her mind when this reporter requested her for an interview after a practice session. For someone coming from Buldana — a no-mall, no-boutique town in the hills in central Maharashtra — shopping figured prominently in her things-to-do-in-Mumbai list.

It’s been a long hard journey to the Cooperage Ground, the venue for the trials, for this girl from a conservative Muslim family and Shirin insists she isn’t here just for the kicks. Illiterate parents, three brothers who earn a living driving auto-rickshaws and a nosey neighbourhood had a common objection: Girls don’t play football and certainly don’t wear shorts.

“It was difficult for me to stick to football but I have managed to make it to my first senior national selection trial,” says the young footballer, who has represented her district for the last two years. About her initial hurdles, Shirin says: “First of all it was my religion. People told my father to dissuade me from playing the game. They said that I will be a bad influence on the other girls of my community.”

But Shirin was hooked to the sport from the time her school coach Praful Mohril saw her kick the ball during a sports period. No one from her family is into any kind of sports, forget football. And until she turned 14, Shirin just stuck to academics. But dramatically, within two years of taking up football, Shirin’s athletic attributes make her stand out on the field today. Her tall frame and long strides make her a star striker, who dreams of a place in the nationals.

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