It is 8.30pm on Thursday and the flight has just made a safe landing at the Ranchi airport. The first few steps you take out of the plane and you end up noticing quite a few banners of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren alongside the eight national captains taking part in the FIH Paris Olympics Qualifiers for women. The event will be held from January 13 to 19.
The banners are a clear indicator of the city gearing up for the big-ticket event. India, who narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Olympics at the Asian Games in Hangzhou in October are one of the favourites to punch their ticket for the mega event in Paris this July.
The next step was to find transport to the hotel. So, it was time to book a taxi. After exchanging pleasantries, the discussion with the taxi driver slowly veered towards the current conditions in Ranchi. The driver succinctly observes it is cold in Ranchi and you must be feeling it (translated from Hindi to English). The writer quips – it’s true, but being from Bengaluru, so perhaps used to it.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that his next observation is about the hoardings related to hockey qualifiers right through the 5-km stretch that takes you to the hotel. Not just the taxi driver, but even the hotel receptionist is waiting with bated breath for the tournament to begin.
Even before I begin to speak, the reception desk’s first question is if I have travelled all the way from Bengaluru to cover the hockey tournament. The waiters at the hotel, too, had the same query.
Even while taking a long walk in the wee hours of Friday, there were small banners on display. In one of them, Olivia Merry, the New Zealand skipper, was featured. Another banner features Niki Lorenz, the German skipper.
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Perhaps as four local players – Nikki Pradhan, Beauty DungDung, Sangita Kumari and Salima Tete – are participating in the event, it has galvanised the entire city. If you dig deeper, Pradhan finding a place in the women’s team, in 2016, seems to have motivated other girls from the state to visualise dreams of making it big in the world of hockey.
The festivities surrounding the city are further exemplified by the kind of local folk dances on display to welcome every single team that has landed in Ranchi.
All in all, the next week promises to be full of action not just on the field but off the field as well. Ranchi has become a home for India’s national sport. And it may turn out to be the foundation stone for India to not just book their place in Olympics, but also go on to achieve bigger things.
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