Kranti FC: Striving to provide the have-nots a dream

File photo of children playing on cracked lands under harsh skies in India

In hot and humid climate, a group of 20 children play football bare foot, on a ground where most of us will not even dare taking a few steps without shoes or slippers. A place where football was only heard of, never played. It was a delight for the onlookers to see kids battling to win the ball and score a few goals. This was made possible by a small group of football enthusiasts from IIM Udaipur who themselves couldn’t live their dream of becoming footballers. They had a reason to cherish their dreams by coaching these kids. The primary aim of this group of ours is to give back to society in whatever manner we can.

Our journey started by visiting a few villages, talking to the heads of the village and conveying the vision of our project KRANTI. The village heads were satisfied with project Kranti and eagerly awaited its execution. With some hope we started coaching children at farmlands that were full of thorns and stones.

Dipankar Behera and Gaurav Meena were the initial members who were later joined by Harish Kotagiri, Pradeep Meena and Abhishek Kumar. Each of us had played football at some level and had decent knowledge of the game. Currently Kranti is functioning in Raghunathpura and Kalimagri village. Dipankar and Pradeep are responsible for the boy’s team here and Gaurav, Abhishek and Harish give coaching to girls in the respective villages.

At an age when they should be learning, most of these village kids carry out entire household work and work outside to support their family. Just think how an eight-year-old boy can work at a garage just to earn a few rupees so that he can take back food to his starving family. We saw the disappointing expressions on their faces. The face, which should glow and express happiness, is immersed in deep sorrow. Some parents lacked interest in our initiative, and they had to be convinced by directly meeting them and conveying our coaching plans, which we had for their kids. Parents understood our plans and encouraged their kids to play. All the kids in the entire village geared up the very next day to play football and learn.

In white shorts and a torn blue t-shirt, a nine-year-old boy Rahul came running towards me shouting, “Sir, I want to learn and play better football than you”.

We were taken aback by such attitude of his and with a smile we responded: “May God be with you”.

With such response, it became really impossible for us to leave Kranti mid-way. At that point we promised ourselves, “At least one player from here will represent India in near future”.

But the journey has not been simple. On the first few days of coaching, the kids didn’t give their full commitment to the game. We never lost hope and made them workout more and play longer hours. Passing, passing, teamwork, passing, passing were the only few words they heard from us. One day, a kid asked us while catching his breath: “Sir how big is the football world outside?”

Pradeep responded with a smile on his face: “The world of football is so big that it can easily accommodate you people only if you play well”.

After hearing this, he ran towards the ball, won it, dribbled past three defenders and scored. That was the moment when we felt very proud. But still a long way to go to reach the goal set by us.

A dream in making.