Sports

Chelsea + Chhapra = Mastichak

What these girls from conservative Bihar are kicking out of shape is not just a football

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Chelsea + Chhapra = Mastichak
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The boys of Mastichak are a disgruntled lot. Three days a week, 13-year-old Suman Kumari usurps control of a tiny patch of land they call their football ground. Her friends too descend in large numbers—often 21, sometimes 44. They divide themselves into teams of yellow and blue. On shining jerseys and fancy shorts, the girls wear their colours proudly.

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Last Thursday, Suman battled hard for her yellow compatriots. As the scoreline stood at 2-2, she dribbled bravely and showed off a mean tackle. But to her surprise, Chandni came up from behind, bent it like Bhaichung and won the match for the Blues. Still panting from the sudden defeat, Suman said, “We’ll play again on Saturday. I’ll show them.” When asked if she has what it takes to make the district team, she says ‘Of course’ with an assurance that makes her sound decidedly urban.

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Chandni has already played for Bihar in an under-16 championship in Goa, and complains, not about the opposition on the football ground, but the boys of Mastichak. “They taunt me all the time. They say girls should stay at home, their place is in the kitchen, not on the field.” Thankfully, the resentful young men are a minority in this village in Chhapra district, 63 km west of Patna, which is fast transforming its social-ethical constructs.

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Mother Sita Devi is happy that a world of opportunities awaits her daughter Pooja

Mastichak’s 5,000-strong population has had no electricity for the past 12 years. In a village without television, girls’ football is a novel form of entertainment and each match draws a vast number of onlookers. Manish Kumar, 20, is one such bystander. The BCom student confesses to being filled with wonder at the spectacle: “A year ago, nobody would have dreamt something like this could happen. Just look at the way they run. The mere sight of these girls playing football goes a long way in creating an atmosphere of progress.”

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Much of the credit for this turn-around goes to Mritunjay Tiwary, project head of the nearby Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital. A diehard Chelsea fan, Mritunjay was surprised when he found two village girls kicking a ball around in January this year. He says, “That’s when it occurred to me...girls wearing shorts and playing football would help us strike directly at the roots of conservatism in Bihar’s countryside.” (According to the National Family Health Survey, 65.2 per cent of women aged 22-26 in rural Bihar are married by 18, and 76.8 per cent receive no education.)

Mritunjay embarked on his project by hiring Bhishm Kumar Singh as coach. Bhishm, a physiotherapist, had once played inter-district football and could not pass up on the opportunity to rediscover his passion for the sport. Together they kicked off an atypical outreach programme, first scouting for talent, then approaching the girls’ parents.  The trade-off on offer was simple, and emancipatory—promise you won’t get your daughter married before she turns 21, allow her to play football, and in exchange we will pay for her school education, train her as a nurse and help her get a BSc in Ophthalmology. Bhishm says, “It’s strange, the reasons some of these parents give by way of resistance is very small. They fear their girls will be kidnapped on their way back from the game. What usually clinches the deal is the lure of a government job, for which these girls would be eligible, after a sound education and training.”

Over the past nine months, 45 girls aged between nine and 21 have come on board to form teams that cut across caste and religion. Sanjeeda Khatun is proud that her 11-year-old daughter Mizbah Parveen is learning the game fast: “I’m glad there are new opportunities for her. I got married at 15 and would hate it if she had to suffer a similar fate.” Mizbah plays on the same team as 14-year-old Rinkee Kumari, whose mother Shail Devi says she has just one desire: “To see my daughter make something of her life”. Rinkee’s older brother, Arvind, is amused at this but indulgent. “One thing’s for sure,” says he in jest, “Rinkee will make me lame. We were playing football the other day and she hit me so hard, my leg is still aching.”

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Ruchika Anuragini, the goalkeeper, outside her house

As Arvind pretends to limp his way down, two girls on a motorbike almost throw him off his path. Driving at a frightening speed, sisters Sonali Sinha, 18, and Ruchika Anuragini, 21, are still wearing their jerseys and shorts hours after the final whistle. Their father, Ranjit Singh, stops watering his paddy field to watch. A keen footballer himself, he was the first man in the village who dared to send his girls to school on a bicycle. He adds, “All the people in my village were scandalised, but I realised something early on. It is important to give your daughters an education. I have six of them, and know I won’t have to pay big dowries because I’ve taught these girls to be self-sufficient.” Ruchika, already a nimble goalkeeper, will soon start her nurse’s training at the eye hospital.

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Mritunjay, who simultaneously runs a marketing business in Calcutta, confesses he has a vested interest in turning these girls into nurses. “We perform 22,000 surgeries a year, two-thirds of which are free. We need more female nurses. Currently we have to make do with boys coming out of Class X, and that’s not the best scenario. I am of the  opinion patient-care should firmly be in the hands of women.”

Enterprising to the tee, Mritunjay invited former bbc correspondent and practising ophthalmologist Lucy Mathen to visit Mastichak. Mathen has been working with blind people in rural India since 2000 through her organisation Second Sight. And fortunately for the village, she also happens to be a football fanatic. One Sunday, Lucy joined the village girls and found that “playing with them was just like playing football anywhere, except that some were barefooted, and I was very aware of the advantage I had with my trainers”. Lucy got her columnist friend, Simon Barnes, to write about Mastichak in the London Times. Soon readers began donating their old football boots by the dozen. Some have already made their way to Bihar. Suman now finds she’s able to curve the ball better.

Even better news for the girls is that Chelsea football club doctor Bryan English, also responding to the story, is sending Mastichak 40 new football kits in February. What’s more, the English Premier League contenders are donating a bus to the hospital. A delighted Mritunjay is in talks with the West London team for a more formal tie-up: “I’m trying to get a team of their administrators to come visit us next year. They can hopefully help us set up an academy that will train these girls even better.”

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Dr Khursheed Ahmed, who performs more than 50 surgeries at the eye hospital everyday, is pleased Mastichak is finally living up to the playful connotations of its name. He says, “First up you have masti and that immediately makes you think of fun, but if you ask me, we should make a film about this place and call it Chak De! Mastichak.” While he won’t allow himself to be compared to Shahrukh Khan, Mritunjay agrees the story of this village has all the makings of a Bollywood hit. He concludes, “If Bihar is an anticlimax to India, the girls of Mastichak are making the village an anticlimax to Bihar.” Watching Chandni’s face after she scores that winning goal, you can’t but concur.

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