“Growing up, I used to love playing gully cricket with my brother and his friends– I’d always hit the ball with my foot and everyone would tease me. They’d also play football– I watched their match once and was hooked. There, the coach asked me, ‘You want to play?’ I enjoyed it so much that I ended up playing for 3 hours.
It was late by the time I got home; Ammi was looking for me. When she saw me returning with the boys, she yelled– ‘Why did you go alone with so many boys?’ When I told her I was playing football, she was furious– ‘Yeh ladko wale khel nahi khelne chahiye!’ Bahut maar padi thi uss din.
But I spoke to Abbu and told him how good I was at the game, even better than the boys– he agreed and persuaded Ammi. I enrolled myself in a football training camp.
I was 1 girl amongst 47 boys– my neighbours would tease, ‘Ek ladki ladko ko nacha rahi hai.’ They’d taunt my parents, ‘Why are you allowing her to dress like this?’ They even forbade their daughters to be friends with me. I didn’t care– I was playing football!
But the boys I was training with said, ‘Why don’t you stay home and wash utensils like other girls?’ My coach gave them an earful, ‘I can lose you all but won’t let Nadiya go.’ That day, I learnt that I had to toughen up to survive in a man’s world.
In 2010, I played my first national tournament at 14; my team won because of me. Around the same time, I got a boy cut and stopped wearing a hijab while playing– I wanted to fit in and dodge my neighbours’ scornful eyes. But the discrimination didn’t stop.
At a local tournament, I was the only girl and had to hide my identity. A man in the audience figured it out and demanded that I stopped playing. Even though I was crucial in winning the semi-finals. I wasn’t allowed to play the finals… because I was a girl.
My family also believed that there was no scope for a woman in football. I was shattered– but my coach pushed me to start a training centre of my own while I made a place for myself as a player.
So, I approached the J&K football association– they let me use their ground and equipment. At first, only boys enrolled. So, I’d go to schools to motivate girls to play. While I pushed the association for an all women’s team, my career picked up– in 2018, I became the first Kashmiri female captain of the J&K football team. Ammi and Abbu were so proud. But all my efforts bore fruit when Real Kashmir FC launched an all women’s team!
Still, recently, somebody commented on my post– ‘This game is not for cultured women,’ but I don’t care anymore. I train over 40 girls in my centre. Looking at me, many of them got a boy cut to ‘fit in’, so I decided to put an end to it. I let my hair grow long because that’s how I want it– why can’t I be me AND do what I love?”
Source~ (via Humans of Bombay)
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Jatin Tyagi 