Making room for squash in a sleepy village

The blaze from the unforgiving afternoon sun bounces off the slick glass squash court, where a bunch of children are walking barefoot, their shoes in their hands.

- Rutvick Mehta

MUMBAI: The blaze from the unforgiving afternoon sun bounces off the slick glass squash court, where a bunch of children are walking barefoot, their shoes in their hands. A low, thin wall sits between the modern court—the kind erected in a posh Mumbai club for an international tournament—and a row of concrete houses only recently upgraded from their kutcha status. A group of girls stands under the shade for a mid-day catch up. Bijali Darwada joins them. The 25-year-old has spent a large part of her teenage years across that little wall, hoping to become a national level squash player. Last year, she flew to Sri Lanka for an international tournament. The day after her return, as former squash pro Ritwik Bhattacharya vividly remembers, she sat by the lake, washing clothes. This is not usual for a squash player. Then again, nothing about this squash academy is usual.

Nestled in a tiny corner of Maharashtra ringed by the Western Ghats, this countryside is now being swept by a largely urban sport. Kalote Mokashi, a village in Raigad district about two hours from suburban Mumbai, has waterfalls, camps by the lake and getaway farmhouses. It also has a sporting ecosystem that provides local children access to basic infrastructure, means to play sport, and a development path through a game they didn't know existed until 2017.

That's when the Squash Temple and Rhythm Training (Start) academy sprung to life in this sleepy village, with Bhattacharya, India's former top-ranked pro and holder of nine Professional Squash Association (PSA) world tour titles, making Kalote Mokashi his home.