The incredible coaches who converted little girls into confident independent young women…

Man is born free but is bound with chains, so goes a saying but that holds more true for women. Women in general take fewer challenges and generally are breed not to be ambitious, daring, bold or even a bit crazy for a while just to be free, have fun and de-stress. Women face innumerable barriers which they have to overcome to be independent in the sense become someone you can see and feel is strong enough to handle lot of situations on her own so nobody need worry about her and bother her. To be a strong women one has got to be a strong person first and for that she’s not to be told she can’t do things because of less physical strength etc, she should be as strong as she can be, period(this has another meaning due to biological and menstrual cycles for women fork, nothing anyone should be shy of).

Well… let me narrate this inspiring story… These days we are afraid  that people are not good, that villages has no growth and future, that life is happening in the Cities and we read about crimes, we are fed with fear so a bit of good news is like sunshine, read on, also we all should focus on India that is rural as well somewhere we are caged with this India in the Cities mentality… just because the women in your circle are doing well because they are well to do or in a favourable environment, it may not be the case with many other women, have no bias and even the women in the first scenario mentioned have fought many challenges and come up because being a women is hard…

Now to the story

This is a tale not about 2 Cities but about 2 basket ball coaches one of them is a Limca Record holder for coaching the Chhattisgarh girls’ team who won 43 gold, 14 silver, 21 broze medals at the National Level Coach –  Rajesh Patel and another under whom 2 Karnataka girls have entered the FIBA Asia Basketball Championship, one in the Senior Women’s team and another in the U-16 team category, coach Anpur Raviprakash  in Mandya District.

Well, both coaches have done a feat and their stories are similar.

Under them girls of poor conservative families have now become confident talented basketball players who are earning money and proved to their families and society that they are capable of succeeding, achieving things. These very girls might have otherwise been at homes without much achievement, without confidence, without the capability to earn money, provably just married off and not having much respect in society and look at them now!! They play for their country, they earn money which they send home and are not required to get married that being the general norm because it is assumed that they being girls can’t do anything else otherwise.

Coach Rajesh Patel runs an academy training girls who are accommodated at a hostel above his house. Till now 65 girls out of his academy have come out all good, some of them have made it big as well as 39 girls have gone and played basketball at an international level, 7 have captained India, others have got employment as railway ticket collectors. These were girls of fishermen, truck drivers and cart venders when he went and asked these kids parents’ permission to train their girls for basketball at his academy, the parents were reluctant, he promised them that their girls would be educated, well-kept safely and will be groomed to earn money and make a living which made the parents agree to send their girls to him… and coach has made them achievers.

The tallest 6’5 inch women basket ball player of the country, Poonam Chaturvedi is one of the girls from Rajesh’s academy, she may have a malformed upper lip but is a star scorer for the Chhattisgarh team in Senior National Championships.

At Mandya,  Anpur Raviprakash who was serving as Basketball coach with Development of Youth Empowerment and Sports picked girls from villages in Mandya trained them in basketball and made them into successful people. HM Bhandavya was a 10 year old demure girl from a farmers family when coach Anpur took her and now 7 years later she is the youngest  cager who has got into Indian Senior women’s team at the FIBA Asia Basketball Championship leads the Karnataka women’s squad.  Another young lady under coach Anpur, Sandhya CR represented India at the FIBA U-16 Championships last year.

His players were taken after he had convinced the village panchayat  elders and families of the girls that the girls would be provided lodging, food, education and would be able to earn money and acquire a better lifestyle, this convincing  was a difficult task as girls were not even sent out to schools to acquire any education. Now seeing these girls playing basketball at National Level and doing really well, the phanchayat elders want their village girls to go pursue sports and do their village proud.

So this is the tale of two male coaches changing society helping girls and women develop and rise to big heights. In this world there are men who commit crimes against women  and humanity but there are also men who make their women fork strong. Let’s appreciate coach Rajesh Patel and Anpur Raviprakash and learn from them some good life lessons if not basket ball lessons. If we encourage girls to do something and support them they can achieve wonders. We need more people like them, let’s aspire to be like them and never tolerate people who commit crimes on people, women or anyone for that matter.

Also it will be great if parents, families, societies encourage girls into physical activities, education is important, so is mind and body strength and confidence… its high time too self-defence be made compulsory for girls in schools and colleges… an article on that another time

Here are some random quotes to empower girls like these two coaches have done…

Quote 1…Empower Women to become heroines not groom them to be victims

Quote 2…Being a complete women or man is nothing more than being a complete human being for which all need same rights and freedom to lead a successful happy life

Quote 3…Being a complete women or man is nothing more than being a complete human being for which all need same rights and freedom to lead a successful happy life

Quote 4…Don’t idiolize women grand titles of ‘Laksmi, Parashakthi, Saraswathi aloneto show respect, instead pave way for her to reach her full potential so she can be a real shakthi in society.

Quote 5… Pinzade ko aur majbuut mat banavo, aurrat ko aur majbuut banavo, nahi toh Pinjade mei aurrat sukk jayeghi ya toh sara Jeevan pinjada ko todne mei lag jayegi…

Don’t make the cage stronger, make the women stronger or else she will rot in the cage or spend all her life’s energy  on breaking the cage… Make our women fork strong.