Growing up in a middle-class neighbourhood meant that seeing cricket being played on the streets surrounding my house was the norm for me. As the years passed by, the faces of those playing the sport around me kept changing — either because of the entry of younger players into the scene, or by virtue of the natural ageing process (read: puberty) that the older ones were experiencing, sometimes making their faces unrecognisable at first glance, if one were to see them after a long while!

Nonetheless, what didn’t change was the perceivable gender of the players in question. They were boys — always. Or, better yet, “young men”, as boys are often encouragingly referred to by their elders.

I could see joy in those streets. I could see excitement. Rage, friendship and aspirations coming to life were also often the subject of my eyesight. What I couldn’t ever see though, at least at first glance, was my own self.

I was present in every human emotion that permeated the air of those streets, and yet I wasn’t present there. My humanness made me an equal participant in this world of child’s play, or at least it should have. Instead, I was merely a spectator, that too a silent one.

Girls have long been excluded from playgrounds and from sports in public spaces on the pretext of ‘propriety’ and ‘tradition’. What does it feel like for a woman to see herself represented in them?

I was never fully present in those streets, even when I would occasionally step foot in them — which would only be for the purpose of travelling from my home to my next (temporary) destination and back. I was always absent from them, even while being present at times, simply because I would never see anyone who looked like me — obstructing traffic while fielding in the middle of the road and getting away with it, as that group of cricket-playing boys did.

It took me a while to realise it, but I eventually understood that the world is your playground — only if you are a man, or are in the process of becoming one in society’s eyes.

For years after that, I waded through the earth like a ‘normal’ girl would be expected to: by actively trying not to think too much about my place in the field of sports. I was too young to understand, though, that it was not just sports that my world had been closed off to by society.

Instead, it was the luxury of visibility, without my humanity being put second to my gendered presentation, that I was being deprived of. This issue, I imagine, did not — and still does not — apply to cisgender boys and men (ie boys/men who were assigned the sex ‘male’ at birth).

There is an innate humanness afforded by our society to men. For girls and women, on the other hand, the sexualisation of their bodies tends to take centre stage. Even if they aren’t sexualised in a given space, the mere ‘potential’ for — and the very real threat of — it happening is enough for the patriarchs making the decisions about their lives to confine them to their homes.

And so, we end up with public spaces in Pakistan, where the only ‘public’ present consists of men. Over time, I came to these realisations, as well as the language to articulate them.

The coming of Ramazan annually only sped up this process, as I would witness my elder sister being actively disallowed from going downstairs to play street sports, within our secure apartment complex, in the hours preceding sehri time. In contrast, our male cousin — who was slightly younger than her — would have the permission (from the same set of elders) to do the same, without even having to put up a fight!

The fact that the street in question was the one right outside our apartment block, directly visible from the balcony in our home, further ruled out the possibility of a rational concern around safety being the cause of the disallowance facing my sister.

I, on the other hand, never sought allowance for such a thing in the first place. After all, I was a “good girl” — quick to learn from my sister’s example, so as to prevent inconveniencing my elders, like most girls are taught to do. We routinely shrink ourselves, our needs, our desires and our aspirations to cater to the shortcomings of those around us.

As with many things in life, however, the “good girl” training also sometimes bears side effects: most prominently, the yearning for azaadi [freedom], followed often by efforts to achieve the said azaadi. It did so in my case as time progressed, and my ability to reclaim the freedoms that were always meant to be mine increased.

Part of my ‘Reclaiming Azaadi’ personal project has lately been the conscious choice to watch women’s sports. Therefore, when I got the opportunity to cover Instagram stories for a women’s cricket tournament, I knew I had to say yes in a jiffy! The fact that it was happening in Ramazan further incentivised the deal for me, as I sought to reinvent my previously fractured relationship with this month, in terms of existing in public.

It was for the seventh edition of the Khelo Khawateen Ramazan Women’s Tape Ball Tournament, organised by a local platform. A total of 12 teams participated in the tournament, with 15 matches taking place over three days, at the Kutchi Memon Ground in Karachi. More than 120 female cricketers took part in the event, with a top prize of Rs100,000.

The tournament ran from 10pm to 2am, bringing together sportswomen of varying ages and experience levels — ranging from some national level players to first-timers, a sizable chunk of whom probably would have thought, at some point in time, that they would never have the chance to play cricket like this.

Equally hearteningly, the family members of new and seasoned players alike were there to celebrate the girls, with raucous applause accompanying every boundary and wicket, cheering equally loudly for those who dared to step on the field against societal odds.

On the final night, I returned home after passing through yet another men’s cricket match, taking place on the street adjacent to my house. However, the sound of girls cheering on their teammates in the Khelo Khawateen tournament — from across the fences — kept reverberating in my ears throughout those moments.

And this is how, for the first time in forever, I did not feel alone on that street.

There is something about seeing girls fearlessly existing in public, playing sports or doing something equally unconventional — especially at hours that are considered particularly ‘improper’ for them to be out of home — that makes my heart feel a deep sense of comfort.

It tells me that I, too, belong. That these streets are as much mine as anyone else’s. That the joy contained within this universe is enough to spill over each of us, without ever running out.

Many in Pakistan still oppose women’s sports, but initiatives like this tournament are gradually altering our tangible and intangible landscape for the better. The world is still not a woman’s playground, but at least the playgrounds in the world have started widening their embrace to include women players in it as well.

And, maybe, that is all it will take to change the worlds of millions of girls for the better.

Dhuha Alvi is a writer whose research revolves around gender, class and politics.
She can be reached at zohaalvi.21@gmail.com.

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 28th, 2024