The schoolgirls of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) in Maharashtra’s Jalna district are not aware of the millions of rupees that were spent on G-8, eight franchisees of All India Football Federation’s Indian Super League that were announced 200 miles away in Mumbai in April this year.

The tribal girls who play football, amongst other sports, live in the residential school tucked away deep in the heart of Maharashtra. Through tireless practice, the teenagers of KGBV, a school for under-privileged girls in difficult-to-reach areas, have found a berth in state and national teams for football and kho-kho, an unprecedented development in this part of the underdeveloped state.

“Four of our athletes have been chosen for the Maharashtra state team to play in the nationals under 16,” boasts a proud coach Rafik Shaikh.

The students of the school are mainly tribals, orphans, children of farmers, migrant labourers and cotton pickers. “Basically, these are girls from the weakest sections of society. Their parents who are migrant labourers travel for seasonal work, so they leave them here. Due to hard work by the students and the coach, the girls have made our school famous and made us proud of their accomplishment of playing in the nationals,” the headmistress and warden of the hostel Nalavade says.

The credit for this unusual feat goes to coach Shaikh. Shaikh, who hails from Ankush Nagar, in the same locality, has been teaching athletics at this residential school for fifth to tenth grade students since 2007. He was a part of the Maharashtra state team in 2005 and has been a senior national kho-kho player. He bagged a gold medal at the state level in 2007. Currently, he has dedicated his time to complete a PhD titled, ‘Study of emotional concept of kho-kho and non-kho-kho players’.

Coach Rafik Shaikh. -Photo by the author

“Psychology is very important in sport. Every child has talent but it is a lot of hard work to bring it to the fore. I wanted to bring the talent out in these girls who come from tribal families,” Shaikh says.

Had it not been for Shaikh’s understanding of psychology, he would not have been able to have a breakthrough with his students. “When I first came here, the girls were extremely shy and conscious of me. They were so scared that they didn’t even talk. All their lives, they didn’t know how to live without fear. I got them here after being their father, sister, brother, mother and friend,” Shaikh says, pointing to the school ground.

Shaikh started with 16 girls, aged 10 to 15, from fifth to eight grades in 2007. “Initially, they were so shy they refused to run. I told them to run ahead of me as they felt they could not run in front of a male member of the faculty, so I would run behind them. They would then stop and laugh if I tried running ahead or with them. I couldn’t make eye contact with them,” recalls Shaikh.

In a culture that is oppressive to women, there were hurdles every step of the way, but Shaikh refused to bow down to a lifetime of negative conditioning that the children had endured.

“When I taught them stretching exercises, they used to giggle and be embarrassed. I couldn’t even look at them as it would put them off. Slowly, they started getting in the grind of things and getting used to my presence,” he shares.

After the students responded to him positively, Shaikh decided to take it up a notch and bought shorts and tee shirts for the budding athletes. “First, they refused to get out of the changing room. After a lot of coaxing, when they came out, they were pulling their shorts as low as they could. They had never seen girls in shorts before in their lives,” laughs Shaikh.

When the teams first started their practice in at the tehsil level, the girls who were not exposed to competition, were a little taken aback. But Shaikh assured them that they were at par with everyone so there’s was need to feel inferior. Gradually, Shaikh started coaching a wrestling team and one of his students took a bronze medal at the state level. Buoyed, the girls started eventually started participating in multiple sports.

“When we wear shorts, some girls ridicule us but we cannot pay attention to such things or they will affect us negatively.” -Photo by the author

Some students started playing football after kho-kho practice. Now, at the district level and the state level (under 16), Shaikh’s students have won the gold this year.

Students like Radha Shinde (16) started off with kho-kho and then excelled at football too. Currently, she’s on both the state teams.

“We practice two hours everyday. I feel good when I play the nationals.”

Girls like Shinde have served as good role models for the rest of the students. But not all of them are as confident and realise the importance of Shaikh in their trajectory of progress.

“Sir doesn’t criticize us. He reinforces in us that we have the potential and just have to live up to it,” says 15-year-old Trupti Rathod.

Then there are others like Varsha Shinde (14) who want to teach football in the village she grew up in. “I will study further and take this up as a profession. I want to be a coach like Sir,” she says confidently. The exposure to the competitive sports environment has instilled a confidence in the girls which is helping them socially as well.

“When we wear shorts, some girls ridicule us but we cannot pay attention to such things or they will affect us negatively,” confesses Sheetal Mansare (16), the goalkeeper for Maharashtra state.

Realising the pivotal role sports psychology has to play in the performance of the students, Shaikh feels it’s important to keep the students constantly motivated, especially when they are playing city teams.

“Due to lack of exposure and inferior facilities (compared to city clubs), our girls used to feel less confident. But after winning some matches, that changed,” he explains. The results speak for themselves.

“From our school, two girls have been chosen for state level team in football. In kho-kho, 262 girls participated in state level over seven years. Seven girls are participating in national level in kho-kho and four girls are on standby for state level team. Some of our best players of kho-kho are also the best players of football and are playing for both the national teams,” he says with a wide smile.

The state spends only Rs 70,000 on the students per year. After his successes, Shaikh, who currently makes Rs 5,000 a month, has had job offers from private schools but he has declined. “They even offered me free education for both my children in a school which has fees of one-and-a-half lakh rupees and a salary of Rs 30,000, but I’m not interested. I’m emotionally attached to this team.”

Dilnaz Boga is an Indian journalist and the recipient of Agence France-Presse Kate Webb Prize for her work in Indian-administered Kashmir.