‘We are the village’s shining stars’: hockey is giving India’s rural women new status
Hosting the World Cup in the Indian state of Odisha has transformed playing the game into a respectable career choice
In a small mud room, Elisaba Lakra hurriedly cooks lunch for her husband. It is 11am and she only has two hours before her eight-year-old twin girls return from school. As captain and coach of Khamarimunda village hockey team in India’s Sundargarh district, she needs to fit in practice before they do.
Lakra, 27, first picked up a hockey stick aged five and by 13 was playing for the Odisha state junior team. She was selected for a place at a training academy in Rourkela, host to the recent Hockey World Cup, about 70 miles (112km) from her village.
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