What’s a game of Football after all?

I stood in a hot and sweaty classroom talking to a large group of older students about the “issues” they face.As I looked outside the room, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I was too distracted to continue that I took an unplanned break. In the
middle of the afternoon under the scorching heat of the relentless sun, a group of shalwar clad girls, were playing football with a group of boys. Yes, football. Even from my limited knowledge of the sport I could see that they have done this before, and had done it for a while.I looked around to see if anyone else was amused by this seemingly baffling scenario, but no one seemed to notice anything different. As I saw what I saw, I qucikly snapped a picture and sent it to my brother ( the self appointed guardian of my rightfull place as a women) with a caption that read, in bold, “ a man’s game! my foot”.In a futile attempt to unconfuse myself I tried telling myself “ So wh

at’s the big deal, it’s just football afterall? right?”...... wrong!.

I was so completely distracted at the time that it did not even occur to me that these students were playing in an area only recently cleared of landmines. Earlier that day, I met these students, trying to help them figure out these so called “issues”. However, their issues were somewhat different from what one might ex

pect.In this particular group, every single student had lost a family member due to death, detention or succumbed to the infamous lable “missing”. Most of them were forcefully conscripted to fight a grusome, bloody war they had not asked for, but nonetheless paid for it dearly.On average each student had been displaced and resettled 8 to 12 times within the past 10 years. They had suffered immensly at the hands of those who fought for, and aganist their rights, just two sides of the same coin depending on how one chooses to see it. Raped, orphaned, abused, maimed, detained, totured , the so called “issues” are endless.

A year ago when I took up an assignment to work in post war are

as, I was told of how backward this war ravaged community was. In order to be accepted I supposed to wear a saree ,pull my hair back , not look at men straight in the eye,speak the correct dialect etc. I had to play the part of a conservative women as this almost primitive society expected nothing less. I had no choice, as my oragnization explained it, but to be culturally sensitive. “I had to be accepted” according to their definition of how a women ought to be and therefore had to play the part accordingly.


This was the first time I travled so far into the interior of this isolated area, where firece fighting had ta

ken place toward the end of the war. The students and their families were resettled recently and were still trying to adjust to their new post war lives, away from detention, rehabilitation and refugee camps.Them playing football did not shock me beacuse I expected them to be traumatized or depressed as many would expect they would be. I was only confused beacuse this was the last place on earth that I thought I would see girls play football, (let alone play football with boys). In my defence, I was asked to be culturally sensitive.

As I travelled back to the city that night, I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that these girls were playing a “man’s game” fearlessly in a place where women and men

had a clear understanding of “how women should be”. How could this so called backward community allow girls to play a “man’s game” ? and that too with MEN? (while I in a progressive city am asked to just watch the game).

Fortunatly that day, I was travelling with a senior counterpart who had worked in these areas through the thick of war. In a futile attempt to downplay my ignorance, I casually inquired of her about this incident that had now become an obsession. She, casually, told me how the traditional role of a women, and what she should and shouldn’t do are none exsistant in this part of the country. At the end of the conversation, she said with a h

alf smile “ They’ve seen women in every possible role, you city folk can’t even imagine”. The rest of the 12 hour journey back home my thoughts were flooded with unstoppable memories of stories I had heard during this assignment and during the past year. Why didn’t I realise this truth before?

I was made to believe that the definition of “how women should be” was well defined in this community. They were right, it was well defined, however the problem was that the definition I was given was wrong. The reality is that this community has seen their women fight in the frontlines of battle, detonate themselves as suicide bombers, manufature small ammunition, launch guerrilla attacks from within dangerous jungles,dress bloody wounds, lose limbs, carry the wounded and bury the dead ( at times the almost dead). Some of them followed the lead

of the women who taught them to assemble a bomb and defuse others, read mine maps and kill themselves when captured by the enemy. They have seen themselves, their mothers, sisters,aunts and girl friends agree to have sex with higher officers, in exchange for front line fighting. Women drove armed cars and tankers, bombed cities, trained fighters,lead battalions,smuggled tractor loads of weapons,dug bunker holes for protection, drank alcohol and roled joints, farmed, foraged and fished to feed their troups. They did all this and more, all in par with men; and in this the land of “how women should be” sometimes....just sometimes..... they also played football together.

This is not another quasie hero sob story of how this community has made it through tough times. While a handfull of resilient ones have re adjusted to their new lives, most of them have not yet made it through the tough times, (and might not anytime soon). The war has left more scars than what are seen outside. Greif, loss, poverty, coruption still continue to plauge them as they struggle to survive just one day at a time. Although the worst is over, and there are small but sure signs of positive change, to most of them them the absence of war is just the absence of war. Nothing more, nothing less.

In this community,one generation has lived to see how a war changed the so called traditional roles of a women upside down. While they were forced to re define the roles of women, they passed on the re-defined version to the next generation who live that reality today. So what’s a game of football afterall? for surely it’s not a man’s game anymore.

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Article written by Annamika.

The identity of the author has not been disclosed for security reasons.