The Chak De! Gang

Unconditional love for the sport and systemic support have resulted in Jharkhand turning into a nursery of hockey players, especially for tribal girls

- Md Asghar Khan

A seemingly unending stretch of a one-way tar road, 25 km from Simdega district of Jharkhand, leads to a cluster of villages. Heavy vehicles are zooming past. A prominent cut on the main road connects to a cemented stretch. At some distance, there is a school, in Kurangagudi village. On the ground, young boys and girls from nearby villages, wearing orange and pink jerseys, are practising hockey. Some are wearing basic shoes; some are wearing slippers or floaters. It's not a professional hockey turf, but it does not matter to them. The fact that they are able to play the sport that they are passionate about is more than enough.

Not very long ago, there was a time when some of the girls and boys could not afford to buy hockey sticks. They played with bamboo sticks instead. Dried custard apples used to be their hockey balls. Some of the girls from that batch are sporting Indian jerseys today. Deepika Soreng, Beauty Dungdung and Sangeeta Kumari, to name a few, are all products of this school and live in the villages close by.

Their success story shines in Jharkhand's hockey chapter, but theirs is not the only one. At present, after Haryana, Jharkhand has the maximum number of players in the Indian team and all of them are tribal girls from impoverished backgrounds. Five of the six players are from Simdega district and four learnt hockey on the Kurangagudi ground.

As one approaches Sember Toli village—two km from Kurangagudi village—a mud track leads to a newly constructed, cemented building. It stands out amid the 20-25 small and modest dwellings. Next to the building is a small, thatched-roof home. There is barely any distance between the two but it has taken more than a decade for the family to move from the kachcha home to the cemented one. Both homes are owned by Soreng, 22.