At the first-ever Kho Kho World Cup, the Indian women’s team is chasing something beyond victory

Without her rebellious streak, Shaikh admits she would not have been half the player—or person—she is today. A trailblazing figure in women’s kho kho in India, in 2023, she became only the second player in the sport in the last 26 years to receive the Arjuna Award, one of the highest sporting honours in the country. For her successor, Ingle, the incumbent captain of the national team, the decision to stay the course with the game has blazed her path to self-actualisation. “When I started playing kho kho 15 years ago, the sport was far from a viable career option for women,” says the 24-year-old, an M.Com postgraduate by qualification. “Sports quotas for female kho kho players at governmental organisations and colleges and universities were next to non-existent.”

Like their sport itself, Ingle, Shaikh and Bhati have built their identities from the ground up. Besides socio-cultural taboos, they have battled economic adversities intrinsic to their modest backgrounds. Shaikh’s father sells utensils in the flea markets of New Delhi. Fellow Delhiite Bhati is the daughter of a truck driver. Ingle, who hails from Maharashtra, has seen her father do everything from farming to working odd jobs at factories. “Thanks to kho kho, all three of us now have jobs with the Indian government’s Income Tax Department,” says Shaikh, who recently bought her family their own brick-and-mortar house in Delhi with her earnings from kho kho. “Even the naysayers now take pride in us, our sport, and its practicalities… like shorts.”