Tough Girls Play Ball

Kumari is a member of the Yuwa soccer team which recently won bronze at a tournament in Spain despite odds. The teams success may be the toast of the town,but a plough knows no better. The owner of the ground in Hutup village in Ormanjhi block located 20 km to the northeast of Ranchi,where the 100-odd tribal girls had practised football almost every day for the last four years,had decided to prep it for the farming season. It means just one more obstacle across their path,then. The girls attention turns to a smaller field adjacent to the football hub built with the $25,000 Nike award given to Yuwa in 2011. After a 15-minute session of weeding the site,the girls get down to play an improvised version of football.

An adversity is often a precursor to an opportunity. Yuwa was started in 2009 after Franz Gastler,a Minnesota-born 31-year-old who had been working for a clutch of NGOs in India,took the advice of a friend and decided to experience Jharkhands village life,first-hand. He had been teaching English to the children of the area when one of the girls at Hutup Suman,who has since left the programme suggested he teach them football. Here was a man who was an ice hockey goalkeeper,had taught alpine skiing and in whose country football is a game where the foot rarely meets the ball.

Yet,the team of 18 under-14 girls he scratched together from nine-odd villages of Ormanjhi block has returned with one of the better achievements of contemporary Indian football. Yuwa entered the 22nd edition of Donosti Cup,held last month across 10 age categories for boys and girls,with almost 400 teams from 20 countries taking part. It also registered for the 18th Gasteiz Cup around the same time. Both were held in the Basque Country,with the former being hosted by San Sebastian,home of the La Liga team,Real Sociedad. The team lost in the play-offs at Donosti,but at Vitoria-Gasteiz,they came third in their age category,from a pool of eight teams. Although a non-official tournament,the win was testimony to their intense training,and will power.

The girls participation at the Donosti and Gasteiz cups in Spain was almost accidental. A few Spanish volunteers had visited the Yuwa facilities at Ormanjhi,suggesting they go for it and made the necessary arrangements. An American intern named the team Supergoats. Domestic goats are very common in and around the Hutup area. They routinely wander through the girls football practices and matches and are notorious for their early-morning bleating. Goats,however,have some seriously redeeming qualities: they are fast,wily,agile,smart (when compared to,say,sheep),and persistent to the point of being annoying. Yuwas Donosti team share many of these traits, wrote Rose Thomson,the intern,on her blog.

At the tournaments,the girls made excellent ambassadors the Donosti Cup website features them prominently,wearing the red-and-white sarees popular among the adivasis. It was my mothers Sarna saree, giggles Soni Kumari,14,of Rukka village,who plays as a right midfielder.

There are about 220 girls and 20 boys in the programme now. A majority of them live in kuchha houses in the town,their families primarily engaged in farming or daily wage labour. Many of the girls are married off at puberty. Gastlers intervention has seen them get a basic education at local schools,where,depending on their skill at the game,sometimes,the fees are waived. None of the girls who were regulars at Yuwa have been married off as minors,unlike some of their elder sisters. After the initial resistance of their parents melted,girls have been coming on their own,tagging along with older siblings.

But there have been other hurdles along the way. Lilmuny Kumari,11,was slapped by a panchayat sewak at the Irba panchayat office in April when she went to get her birth certificate to apply for a passport. He kept delaying it. I had bribed him Rs 150,but he asked for Rs 200. When I asked him why,he slapped me, says Lilmuny. The sewak lost his job after local newspapers reported the incident. I came across him afterwards. He claimed he had done so only out of affection for me. Then why did I have the imprint of his fingers across my right cheek for a day? asks Lilmuny.

Lilmuny,who plays as a left back,could not go to Spain,but that does not bother her. My parents dont want me to come here. I have to fight with my mother every day. They want me to pluck the ripe chillies in our field or cook. I shout back,saying that if I can study,I can play, she says. Her parents refuse to pay for her boots; a cousin supports her.

On Sundays,even those who train at the two other grounds in Hesatu and Sildiri reach the Hutup field for a series of matches. Nine coaches supervise them,all of whom have risen through the ranks over the years. We train them to be ambidextrous so they can be deployed in multiple positions, says Soni Kumari,18,who travelled with the team to Spain.

As if in proof,Sunita Kumari,13,the teams main central defender,tears through the right flank with the ball. She is called Puyol after the Barcelona captain,mostly for her fighting spirit and wild hair. I started as a forward. Then I played in the central midfield. Now,I am a defender, says Sunita. Puyol would be proud he began as a goalkeeper,played as striker,defensive midfielder and right back before turning a central defender.

Spain was the first overseas tour for many members of the team and it threw up its own set of challenges. Getting used to running on the artificial turf was the biggest challenge. We kept slipping. But the good thing was that we never got hurt, says Sushma Kumari,Sunitas partner at central defence. The senior girls have formed bonds according to their positions Supriya,the sprightly right back,was completing Lilmunys sentences. Manisha Tirkey and Neeta Kumari chirp left midfielder in unison when asked about their favoured position. But we can always make way for one another at half time, says Manisha. Or I can move to the right wing, says Neeta.

Manisha and Neeta attended the camp held to select the team for the Asian Football Confederations U-13 tournament,along with Shivani Toppo. But their talent often takes a backseat to prejudices and,in some cases,abuse. The coach treated us badly throughout,beating us, says Shivani. Neeta was not selected for the 2012 trip to Sri Lanka,but the other two made it.

Football in this town is a tool for a better life. A group of students from the Birla Institute of Technology,Mesra,have shown interest in teaching the children English and computer skills, said Neha Baxla,who mentors the children in education and life skills.

Various football administrators have been in touch since the girls return from Spain a fortnight ago. Even the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has shown interest in the training of the children. I tell them to do something for football in Jharkhand, says Sandeep Sonu Chhetry,mentor and board member of Yuwa India.

The girls remain a rallying point in Jharkhand,where happy endings are rare.