Women in rural India are not usually known for their athletic prowess. This is not because they are not strong or in good shape – the fact that they do large amounts of chores and farm-related work means that they are – but because their lives of constant work and the societal norms of northern India deny them the opportunity to play sports. On March 8th, however, a crowd of over five hundred gathered to watch four teams of women, athletes in the truest sense of the word, compete in kabaddi, a physically demanding and violent traditional village game.
During the game, which is essentially a two team version of tag, the teams of women would alternately send one of their players into the opposing team’s half in bids to tag and eliminate their opponents. Once a player crossed the midfield line, she would continually repeat the word “kabaddi” without taking a breath, all the while lunging with her arms and kicking out with her legs to try and tag a member of the other team. As the attacker attempted to make a tag, the defense linked arms, tried to surround her, and attempted prevent her from making it back to her own side. Eventually, a tag would be made and, as a cheer went up from the crowd, the attacker would turn and dash back to the safety of her side, while the defense leapt after her trying tackle her and thwart her escape.
The women on the kabaddi pitch and the people in the crowd were not simply witnessing an athletic event, but a painstakingly planned exercise in women’s empowerment organized by World Literacy of Canada (WLC), the NGO for which I have been working over the past six months. Three years ago, WLC decided that as part of their women’s empowerment program, they were going to organize a kabaddi league with teams comprised of female graduates of their adult literacy program from the urban slums and rural areas around Varanasi. At first this idea faced a significant amount of opposition. Kabaddi is a game played almost exclusively by men; many husbands and fathers objected and in some cases even used force to prevent their daughters or wives from participating.
The desire of the women to play, however, proved much stronger than the will of those who sought to stop them. The teams were formed, and the league has been expanding ever since. During the late fall and winter, the women train with professionals and then play a series of games from which the best four teams advance to the semifinals in Varanasi.
In January and February, while the women were rigorously training for the competition, my office was incredibly busy making the preparations for the finals, which, like the previous years’, would be held on March 8th, a day celebrated all over the world as International Women’s Day. There were reporters to be contacted, uniforms and badges to be made, eminent guests to be invited, the construction of a small stadium on the river bank near my office to be organized, and a million other little tasks to be completed. Though my work at WLC is mainly focused on other projects, I spent my free time at work aiding in the preparations, such as assembling the hundreds of badges to be worn by the competitors, and thus was eagerly looking forward to the day of the event.
Though the morning of the big day was busy with last minute preparations, eventually the members of my office were able to sit back and watch their hard work pay off. Thousands of guests arrived, including most of WLC’s community women’s groups. The chief guests appeared on time and delivered their speeches, a street-theater group performed a play on women’s empowerment, musicians performed and most importantly the women, mostly middle-aged mothers or just married young women, showed that they could play kabaddi as well as the pros and treated the crowd to three good games including a particularly exciting final. Watching the victors celebrate with the trophy, I couldn’t help but feel immensely proud of the work my office had done, even though I had only made the badges.
For more information of WLC's work in India click here and for more information on the rules and history of kabaddi click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment