A Dalit girl from Bihar who is playing football with all her hearts and brains to make a mark in the field of sports deserves an appreciation. Bihar is the only state in India that survives on the glory of the past by sacrificing the present. Normally, there is a trend in Bihar that people follow from generation after generation. They harbor an ambition to qualify for either the civil service exams or join politics to gain power. The unemployment rate of Bihar is higher than the national rate of unemployment. To address this problem, the CM of Bihar finds only one solution after ruling the state for the last 20 years. That solution is the demand of special state status from the central government.
In such a dire state of economic doldrum, Ruby Kumari, a Dalit girl living with four siblings and struggling a lot to get two square meals in a day, finally decided to choose football as a career option. She was born to Surendra Ram, a laborer from a brick kiln in a small village in the Siwan district of Bihar. The village of Ruby Kumari falls under the jurisdiction of Ziradevi Block, the hometown of the first president of India, Dr. Rajendra Pasad.
Ground down by poverty, Ruby was inspired by Amrita Kumari, a national footballer, but her village had no facility for sports. So, she went 5 KM away from her village to join Rani Laxmibai Sports Academy in Laxmipur village of Siwan. She is studying in class 12th at the RK Girls High School, Mairwa.
There she met her first coach, Sanjay Pathak, basically a social science teacher who became her mentor and guided her to take her through the nitty-gritty of sports. Mr. Pathak remembers, “When I met her for the very first time in 2017, I saw her raw talent as a defender. I allowed her to play from every position in the football game. She excelled as a defender and attacker.
She has participated in four junior national soccer championships so far, along with 2 under-17 events in Bhubaneshwar as well as Delhi. Moreover, prior to these events, she had already received Khel Samman from the Bihar government twice in 2021 and 2023.
Her story may not have been significant for the mainstream media, but considering the plight of her daily struggle in an environment where 1.57% of people are employed by the state government, she will stand out as a case of inspiration for those who want to change the status quo in life.
Interacting with Insightfultake on the phone, she described her struggle: “I still study in lanterns and live in Indira Awas Unit. My mother cooks on firewood. I don’t have LPG and piped water supply. My family survives on taking land on rent to farm.”
Her journey from helping her father in field with her mother to the state football stadium deserves encouragement and blessings to have a tryst with her destiny. Expressing candidly before putting her phone down, she opined, “Freedom to the girls to move freely without fear and hesitation is important in nation-building. Everyone must walk shoulder to shoulder. The wall between boys and girls must be decimated. An environment of equal opportunity and responsibility for both boys and girls is needed to be created as time demands.”