TACKLING HER WAY UP
The success story of women’s rugby in India has an unlikely protagonist
When Dilip Kumar Chaodhary bumped into a friend last month, he was congratulated on his daughter’s success. He didn’t make much of it, given that Sweety Kumari, 20, had often returned from rugby tournaments with a trophy or a medal. Once home, he realised that the family was gearing up for a little celebration. It was only then that he learned Kumari had been awarded ‘International Young Player of the Year’ by Scrumqueens.com, an authority on women’s rugby around the world. For Chaodhary, it was another reason to believe in his little girl, who had bagged her biggest award yet.
The fifth among seven siblings, Kumari started out as an athlete only at the age of 14, but aced the shorter sprint distances in no time. At a state meet the following year, her blazing pace was spotted by an official from Rugby India and she was soon powering down the flanks with a ball in hand. “During those early days, I found the rules to be quite complicated. All that I focused on was running ahead and passing behind. And, of course, looking out for those tackles when they came flying in,” she says.
Until then, only one girl from Bihar, Shweta
Shahi, had played international rugby. After an India camp in 2017, Kumari, who lives in the village of Nawada, was picked for a tournament in Dubai. That was the first time her folks realised that her bruises weren’t a result of athletics. “I told my father I had to apply for a passport. He couldn’t quite understand the need for one, since athletics had only taken me as far as the state level. When I told him that I had been picked to play rugby for India, his only question was, ‘What exactly is rugby?’ But he’s backed me ever since,” Kumari says, chuckling.
Over the past year, Kumari has been making waves on the international circuit under South African coach Ludwuiche van Deventer. At the Asia Rugby Women’s Championship in the Philippines, Kumari’s first half tries were instrumental in handing the team their first international women’s 15s win over Singapore. They, eventually, won a bronze medal and followed it up with a silver at the Asia Rugby Sevens Trophy in Indonesia. Kumari also pulled off the most tries and points at the Asia Rugby U-20 Seven series in Laos. “We focused on things that the coach stressed on. In the future, I would like to help India qualify for the big events such as the Olympics and the World Cup,” says Kumari.
—Shail Desai
FORMER SUPERMODEL SHEETAL
MALLAR HAS MADE TANGIBLE HER INTEREST IN STORIES WITH TRANSIENTS, A PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION THAT PROBES THE EVER-SHIFTING NATURE OF SPACE AND TIME. EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERVIEW:
QCan you tell us about your subjects and what inspired you to shoot them?
I have been working on this series for about eight years. The interesting thing about shooting over a period of time is that the work takes on many layers, making it richer. Initially, I had a sense of what I was gravitating towards and that’s what I would look for in all the spaces I visited. I am fascinated by the imagined worlds and the makebelieve characters that inhabit them. Every viewer resonates with something different in an image and carries back a different story. I am interested in these stories and all the stories that are born when the viewer sees them.
Q. One of the defining images from your exhibition depicts a burnt poster of Raj Kapoor-Nargis’s Awaara. Cinema, film studios, abandoned ruins and the transitory nature of fame recur. What are you commenting on here? Many of us grew up watching R.K. films. To me, the posters have happy childhood memories attached to them. The burnt posters and negatives, abandoned ruins and even the abandoned wedding photo is reminiscent of the end of an era or, maybe, the end of a story. The transient nature of these spaces and the temporality of it all forms the basis of this work. I feel there is a fine line that separates us and holds us together as people, living in a city or a community. I want to reveal these layers that form familiar grounds between us.
Q. While your pictures are a reminder of the fleeting nature of time, the act of photographing these render them immortal...
I see the act of photographing these stories more as an attempt to record an emotion felt at the time. Maybe a bit like holding on to memory.
Q. How did the leap from being in front of the camera to wielding it happen?
I have been in front of the camera since I was 17. So, camera and photography in some ways were always around me. I was always interested in the arts and the visual medium. I started modelling right after school. After 19 years of a fulfilling career, I wanted to move on to something more creative, and photography happened naturally. ■
Transients is on display at Art Musings, Mumbai, till
February 10 —With Shaikh Ayaz