Brahmaputra Volleyball League
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YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS
2020: BVL and social change
Yudhajit Shankar Das, December 24, 2020: ’’The Times of India
When Manju Deka along with a few other men and women of her village in Nalbari district of Assam prepared lunch for over a 100 people, it wasn’t a marriage or birthday party, it was for a volleyball match the hamlet was hosting. Like Deka’s Barbari, scores of villages across Assam are lending a hand to Brahmaputra Volleyball League, a community effort to take volleyball to every nook and cranny of the northeastern state and bring about social change along the way.
Envisioned by a group of 55 sports enthusiasts and helmed by Assam’s only international volleyball player Abhijit Bhattacharya, the first edition of the under 16 Brahmaputra Volleyball League (BVL) started mid-December and will witness 144 matches across 16 districts of the state over three months. The league is part of the group’s efforts to help children from poor homes to potentially shape their destinies by excelling in the game and spurring Assam to become a volleyball hotspot. Their Rangoni Youth Sports Foundation runs 56 volleyball training centres across 19 districts of the state. “We deal with really poor children. I still remember a boy from a village in Sonitpur district who used to come for practice wearing old, oversized pants, held around his waist by a string,” says Utpal Nath, who along with Bhattacharya founded Rangoni in 2009. “That kid has now bagged a job in the police force, all thanks to the game,” he adds.
Nath, who himself got a job in the railways because of volleyball, is an assistant coach at the training centre in Besseria village and in-charge of four BVL teams. The coaches, all former volleyball players, are engaged in other professions but spare two hours every day to train the kids for free. “Most of the children don’t have even a pair of shoes and borrow from friends or neighbours to play matches,” says Nath.
Poverty comes in the way of talent and no one knows it better than Zakir Hussain of Ukhura village in Kamrup district. A goatherd and marginal farmer, Hussain played inter-state volleyball matches but couldn’t progress further because of financial constraints. The 42-year-old now coaches 56 children, mostly students of classes 7 and 8, including his 10-year-old son. “I have seen positive behavioural changes in the teens of my village after they started practising regularly,” says Hussain, taking out time from last-minute shopping for the home match of his BVL team. “Earlier you would find most of them idly chewing gutka and betel nuts, which they have stopped doing completely now,” he says.
“This low-cost game can change anyone’s life,” says Bhattacharya, who now lives in Delhi and keeps shuttling between the city and Assam. “I was poor in academics but volleyball gave me everything, including a job with ONGC,” he says. “Several players we coached got jobs in the Army and the police,” he adds. Bhattacharya was part of the national team for a decade — captaining it in 2003 and 2005 — and playing at international tournaments and winning medals for India.
Bhattacharya, with a handful of his friends, started Rangoni and rolled out the Assam Volleyball Mission 100 or AVM 100 with the simple target of providing 100 volleyballs to children and youths in various villages of the state. “That mission was accomplished within a week and then we set out to train 100 players. That too achieved, we are now working towards a target of setting up 100 coaching centres across the state,” says Bhattacharya. But the enthusiastic, young players needed a platform to show their mettle, and that is how the Brahmaputra Volleyball League was born. And barely in its first week, local media outlets are enthusiastically reporting on BVL and updates are being shared on various social media platforms.
The volleyball league in which 50 teams including 17 girls’ teams are participating, has combined prize money of Rs 2 lakh. “We started the league with zero budget. Organising a tournament of this scale would need lakhs of rupees, so we decided to develop a league through people’s participation. The prize money has been entirely crowdfunded,” says Bhattacharya. One can sponsor a team just for Rs 15,000. “We buy jerseys, balls and nets for the teams and fund their travel expenses with that money,” he says.
Everything from preparing the ground to arranging loudspeakers, from lunch for the players and officials to pitching tents for the guests, everything is being done with people’s contribution and participation. “Even the theme song and the BVL logo have been created by well-wishers. The Tezpur University MBA Alumni association is helping us in all the creative work and with social media outreach,” says Bhattacharya. The matches are drawing a good number of spectators and the atmosphere in general is electrifying. 15
Hussain of Ukhura says his village is preparing lunch for the match day for more than 100 people, including around 40 members with the visiting team, with contributions from villagers. “People gave rice, dal and mustard oil. A villager sponsored 15kg of chicken and some contributed money for fish,” says Hussain. “Give us a banana or a bag, we will use it for volleyball,” adds Bhattacharya. Heeding his call, several renowned players like Olympian shuttler Aparna Popat, Arjuna awardee TT player Monalisa Baruah Mehta and international badminton player Ruchita Sharma have pitched in and adopted teams.
Forty-nine of the 50 teams have found sponsors. “Just the team from Kardaiguri in Barpeta district didn’t find a sponsor and we thought that ‘maa’ or mothers from across the world could be the sponsors with Rs 100 each,” says Bhattacharya. The wish isn’t unrealistic going by the fact that mothers have been the driving force behind BVL. Sabita Deka, a teacher at Barbari village, whose 12-year-old son plays in the BVL says sports could be his ticket to a bright future. For fellow villager Manju, it is about letting her daughter Debarachna “follow her passion”. Fourteen-year-old Debarachna dreams of becoming a “renowned volleyball player and winning laurels for the country”. No dream is too big in the land of Hima Das and Lovlina Borgohain. And the BVL logo with Assam’s map aptly shows a girl leaping in the air, and spiking a volleyball.
