Some months ago in the industrial suburb of Vasai, a bunch of migrant workers from Chhattisgarh huddled together to first dye and later stitch T-shirts till the wee hours. A power cut complicated things but candles were lit to complete the work.

This isn’t about a tyrant employer’s exploitation but the against-all-odds story of a rag-tag hockey team of factory workers — Jharkhand XI — and its journey from playing casual games on their off days at Janaki Pada, Vasai, to the fourth division league of the Bombay Hockey Association.

It’s also about their shoe-string budget, their home-made orange T-shirts and the passion for the national sport that has failed to fade despite travelling miles to the city of opportunities to earn a living.

They all hail from remote areas in Chhattisgarh — the unusual hockey hub where kids spend their early days searching for ‘J’ shaped bamboo sticks in forests and grow up playing inter-village games that have a rooster or a goat as prize trophies. They are proud of their hockey tradition and roots but the presence of a Chhattisgarh XI already in the league saw them reluctantly settle for Jharkhand XI as their name.

Skipper Ranjit Tigga, who works as a crane operator, says the team name is an insignificant issue. “The most important thing for us was to play. We consider that people from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa are almost the same as they also share the passion for hockey with us,” explains Tigga.

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