ROURKELA: On Sunday night, after India’s match against the US at the Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium in the city, Jyoti Chhetri scanned the capacity crowd for a glimpse of her parents. Once she had spotted them, she smiled. At some level, the Chhetri story couldn’t be any more romantic. She was born inside the city’s main sports hostel at Panposh.
That hostel’s meat and drink is in ensuring kids who take up a hockey stick graduate summa-cum-laude (Dilip Tirkey, Prabodh Tirkey, Lazarus Birla and, recently, Amit Rohidas to name a few). She fell in love with the game. Now, the 20-year-old, already a silver-medallist in the inaugural FIH Hockey5s Women's World Cup last month, is strutting her stuff at the Stadium that’s about 10 minutes away by walk.
Chhetri’s smile, however, hides a grave problem her family faces in the immediate future: the genuine danger of being asked to vacate their home by the government. Soon after she was born in 2003, Bhim Singh, Jyoti’s father, moved out of the small hostel (he was working as a watchman when his daughter was born) quarters to a vacant piece of land right outside the hostel.
On that land, he built a small dwelling for five, including his wife and three children. A few years ago, local authorities knocked on their door to inform them about an upcoming road-widening project as part of a new bridge. On Sunday morning, hours before his daughter prepared to play the US, Bhim recounted his plight to a few journalists.
The family has no problems in giving up their house but they haven’t been promised any alternate accommodation either even though they have informed several authorities about the current situation.
After the match against the US, which India won 2-1 in the shootout, Jyoti was also intimate with the story. “They (government) assured me that they will do something but nothing has happened till now,” she said. For his part, Jyoti’s father has already turned towards God for salvation. “We will see what happens, we are at God’s mercy. Wherever he takes us.”