Times of India: I won’t sell my old mud house: Rani Rampal
Tushar Dutt
PUNE: Rani Rampal, who is playing for Indian women’s hockey team for 10 years now, need not have played the National 5s meet here last week. But knowing her background and grit, it was no surprise that she wanted to contribute for her state team. And contribute she did. By winning the women’s title and losing in the semis of the experimental ‘mixed’ event.
“I had not represented Haryana in the Nationals for a couple of years. They support me so much, this is the least I can do in my free time,” the captain says candidly. Fresh from Asia Cup triumph, she also wanted to experience the faster format that may be the future of hockey.
Rani says a lot has changed in her life.
“When I made it to the Indian team, I was a girl who was fighting poverty. I lived in a village which never wanted me to wear shorts and play the game. I had to face relatives who would tell my parents that I would bring bad name to the family one day,” she tells TOI. “But now, I see the same relatives sending their daughters to hockey academies. I don’t have any anger towards them. In fact, I respect them for changing with time. I somewhere feel my struggle has not gone waste.”
Rani admits that getting a government job and pulling her family out of poverty was the only reason she started playing. “I was only seven when I decided to take up the sport. At that time, I didn’t know what it meant to play for India. All I knew was that the sport may fetch me a job. We lived in a small house, made of mud. Every time it rained, the roof leaked, leaving us worried. My father is a hardworking man and we saw him labour hard even in the month of June, when everybody else stayed indoors to avoid the heatstroke,” she recalls.
No wonder, Rani made it to the Indian team at the age of 14. “I feel other than my first coach Sardar Balbir Singh, the then Indian women’s coach MK Kaushik sir saw something in my game. He had a big role in selecting me in the Indian team,” she says.
When she made her international debut, she had no clue about the Olympics. “Honestly speaking, when I saw my seniors cry after losing the qualifying round for the 2008 Games, I couldn’t understand what was there to get so much bothered about. But a couple of years, when we lost to South Africa 1-3 in the deciding qualifying match for London Games, I realised what it is all about. I cried all night in my hotel room,” Rani says.
“Four years later, we were in a similar situation when we faced Japan for the Rio berth. I told myself: Many players have gone and many will come, but we still have not qualified for the Olympics. This circle has to break,.”
Rani scored the only goal in the match that took the women’s team to the Olympics for the first time.
With a secure job and a good financial support, Rani has ticked most of the boxes. “The biggest one was to make a big house for my parents. My parents have shifted to the new house and are very happy.”
Rani, however, has not forgotten her old home. “I have decided I will not sell that house or the plot. I want to keep it forever. I have reached a place where I need to have something that keeps reminding me of my past. Something that can keep me grounded,” she says, her voice choking with emotion.