Phaltan taluka
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Hockey
As in 2023
Sharmila Ganesan, Nov 12, 2023: The Times of India
Mumbai : Not long after setting down her hockey stick in Ranchi last Sunday, Satara-based defender Vaishnavi Phalke picked up an ice-cream stick. Having sworn off sweets for rigorous training, the 20-yearold allowed herself the frozen butterscotch delight past midnight after India’s flawless 4-0 victory against Japan in the final of the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy.
Inspired by the Shah Rukhstarrer ‘Chak De! India’, Phalke is the youngest of the crop of daughters of farmers, mechanics and daily wagers from the state powering the national hockey team. A majority of these new queens of synthetic grass — Akshata Dhekale, Rutuja Pisal, Kajal Atpadkar, Pooja Shendge, Swati Jadhav, Bhagyashree Shinde and Pragya Bhonsle — grew up among the dried natural grass in drought-prone Phaltan taluka.
Behind hockey girls’ rise, a local teacher who caught them young
Once dominated by the urban elite from Pune, women’s hockey, which has spawned eight women Olympians in the state, including former skipper Eliza Nelson whose eight-year career is bookended by two golds, now sees a bevy of rustic players not only mastering the craft of passing, regaining and covering up under the gaze of European coaches such as former Dutch player Johanna (Janneke) Schopman but also speaking to the media in measured English.
Among them is 20-yearold Vaishnavi Phalke, who helped the team make up for the Asian Games bronze with a shiny gold at the biennial six-nation Women’s Asian Champions Trophy that made her father Vitthal Phalke — a former wrestler — “very happy”.
Even as the medal now awaits a showcase and the bank account awaits the Rs 3 lakh cash prize, Vaishnavi, who made a star debut in the senior side with three goals at Cape Town at the start of the year, is back to dodging sugar in Asu, a large village near the sugar-factory-boasting Phaltan Taluka. “My mother is tired of me,” says the calm midfielder, who has been refusing to eat even homemade sweets for five Diwalis now. It’s no coincidence that a majority of the girls in blue skirt grew up Phaltan taluka. “Unke naseeb mein shayad main tha (Perhaps, meeting me was part of their destiny),” says 47-year-old Vikas Bhujbal, a former volleyball player and local primary school sports teacher, credited with the making of Olympian archer Pravin Jadhav, who decided to take the girls under his wing in 2009.
Keen to watch the kids hailing from nearby villages such as Sarde and Kokli prosper through the equaliser called sports, Bhujbal introduced many to Krida Prabodhini, a state-run sports programme meant to harness the talent of eight to 14-yearolds from Maharashtra’s impoverished pockets.
Those who passed the cluster of tests — including sprinting and throwing a physiotherapy ball — were later picked for training at various Krida Prabodhini centres in the state, most prominently at Pune’s Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, where Bhujbal would often arrive later on his motorbike — a father figure bearing talcum powder, hair oil and other essentials from homes almost three hours away.
Phalke was then a mere eight-year-old audience mem ber who had watched her father lock arms with other glistening men in Kesari Kusti, a homespun wrestling contest. Having spent the first few months running, swimming and crying, she chose hockey as her discipline of choice. “We played against the boys,” says Phalke, a dding that living up to their speed and strength helped her improve her game.
In 2012, Phaltan would quietly judge Akshata Dhekale as the pre-teen sprinted through school grounds in shorts for the first time. “My own classmates looked at me as if I was odd,” says the defender. “I could sense them wondering: ‘How is she running in shorts?’”
Today, the grass is greener. Like Rutuja Pisal, a labourer’s daughter who plays for Union Bank of India, Dhekale — who made her senior international debut last year in the FIH Hockey Pro League mini-series against Germany — has a job. She plays for the Indian Oil Corporation, filling at age 22 the local void she had felt as a child. “We had no women role models from our region in hockey,” says Dhekale.
While Arjuna and Padma Shri veteran Eliza Nelson believes more AstroTurf stadiums would help more women take up the game, Dhekale feels better job prospects would help kill the self-doubt that plagues the security-craving 22 year olds in the team.
However, unlike Haryana and Orissa, the state hasn’t been much of a cheerleader, says Manoj Bhore, senior vicepresident of Hockey Maharashtra, which recently won Rs 10 lakh from Hockey India for its contribution towards promoting the game in the state. “The players need funding for shoes and kits. Like MP, Maharashtra should invest in sending hockey players abroad. Our goal is to prepare players for the 2028 and 2032 Olympics,” says Bhore, adding that HM has set up a new academy in Pune.
Meanwhile, Bhujbal — whose eyes welled up when Rutuja called him up recently to convey that she had made i t into the World Cup squad — worries about the future of the eight to 14-year-olds in his arid radius. Five y ears ago, he says, Krida Prabodhini stopped undertaking the national sports tests which combed young talent from the state's underserved pockets. “If this continues, only the city-bred kids would g et a chance in the game,” says Bhujbal, who follows Shah Rukh on social media. Later, he calls us back with a request: “Can you please tell the makers of ‘Chak De! India’ to make more such movies?”
