Anita Kumari hails from Jharkhand. Her mother works as a labourer and her father is a drunkard. Her family is so poor that all they can afford to eat is ‘mad bhaat’ – rice fermented in water. However, Anita is a gifted football player. She has been playing football for 8 years despite the trouble caused by her fellow villagers.
According to The New Indian Express, the villagers couldn’t understand why Anita was playing so much football while wearing shorts. To discourage her further, they threw glass pieces on the ground to prevent her from playing. Anita fought the misogyny. Along with it, she also fought poverty, the lack of a proper diet, sporting kit and facilities.
Yet, she managed to become one of the 33 girls selected for the national coaching camp at Jamshedpur for the forthcoming FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup team.
“Anita is a very serious player. Through her dedication and hard work she managed to make it to this level,” said her coach Anand Prasad Gope, who offers free training to nearly 300 kids, mostly girls.
According to The Print, the 2022 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup will feature teams from 16 nations. It is scheduled to take place between 11-30 October at three venues in India — Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Stadium, Margao’s Nehru Stadium and Navi Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium.
Whether Anita will make it to the final 23-member squad for the main tournament is still a matter of question. But the fact that she’s made it so far is immensely inspiring.
“Even though our financial condition is very bad, somehow I managed to get all my five daughters educated and got three of them married. My fourth daughter is Anita,” said Asha Devi, Anita’s mother.
Speaking about the kind of hostility they faced from the villagers, Asha Devi revealed:
“The entire village wondered why she is playing so much football, and kept saying that she should be studying instead. But it was better for her to go out and play football than to stay indoors and just do household work.”
Vinita, who is Anita’s younger sister and fellow footballer, said, “(Villagers) used to ask us why we’re wearing ‘half-pant’ like boys, why we keep going to play football, and at the place we would go to practice, they would throw pieces of glass and anything else they could find at us.”
Here’s a video capturing Anita’s journey:
We hope that the future is bright for Anita!