00:00I have decided that if the camp continues, I will go to Olympics.
00:06Sembar Toli is just 25 km from the Simdega district and nearly 200 from Raji.
00:13But here, distance is not measured in kilometers.
00:17It is measured in struggle, in persistence, in quiet determination of young girls holding hockey sticks.
00:25This village, without proper roads or drinking water, has produced some of India's finest women hockey players.
00:33And among them is Deepika Soren.
00:35My name is Deepika Soren.
00:37I am a member of the Indian team.
00:39I didn't know how to get here.
00:42But when I started playing hockey, my father used to show me the matches.
00:46He used to show me how the international players play, what they do.
00:49He was a smoker.
00:51He used to think that one day I will also play like that.
00:54So that was my thought.
00:56I didn't know when I reached here, while practicing.
00:59My mother's role is that if she doesn't go out, I don't reach here today.
01:04Or if I didn't have money to go out, she used to earn outside and gave me a salary.
01:11So I am here like her.
01:14Deepika's journey from a mud house to the international hockey stage is built on her mother's sacrifices.
01:20For 9 years, Firiska Soren worked as a labourer, migrating to Odisha, carrying heavy loads so her daughter could play.
01:29I worked as a doctor and educated her.
01:33When she was selected, I thought how to give her money.
01:37She was very young.
01:40Her father died at the same time.
01:43So I thought how to educate my children.
01:46My father knew how poor I was.
01:53So I thought I will go out.
01:56I was 9 years old.
01:58When we used to go to the camp for the first time,
02:01we had to go for the first time.
02:03The price of the flight was not so high that we could reach in 2000-3000 rupees.
02:08If we wanted to go tomorrow, we had to go today.
02:12It was difficult to get 15,000-16,000 rupees.
02:16At that time, my mother had taken a loan from someone.
02:20But they didn't tell me.
02:22One of the early believers was father Benedict Khojur.
02:25A teacher at the Kurungagudi school, he made a rule.
02:28No stick, no school.
02:30If students did not bring hockey stick, they were sent home.
02:33If you don't bring hockey stick, you don't have to go to school.
02:36That's why I used to bring it.
02:38And I started playing slowly.
02:40At that time, we didn't have so much money to buy a hockey stick.
02:43So my brother made a hockey stick for me.
02:48I used to practice with him.
02:50If father Benedict Khojur didn't stop me from going to school,
02:54that if I don't bring hockey stick, I won't be able to go to school.
02:57Maybe I wouldn't have been able to reach here.
02:59Bamboo sticks turned into real hockey sticks.
03:01Small school matches led to national selections.
03:05In 2023, Deepika scored 6 goals in 7 matches in the Junior Asia Cup,
03:10helping India secure a gold.
03:13In 2024, she debuted for the senior team at the Women's Hockey World Cup.
03:18Her next dream, the Olympic glory.
03:21With her first paycheck, Deepika told her mother to stop working as a labourer.
03:25The house, which once seemed impossible, is nearly complete.
03:29When she went to work, she told me that she would never live in a house again.
03:37It was her dream.
03:39I remember that she told me that.
03:41So I want to fulfill her dream.
03:45This is not just Deepika's story.
03:47It is the story of women who refuse to be defined by their circumstances.
03:51Of mothers who labour so their daughters can dream.
03:54Of girls who pick up hockey sticks and carve a path.
03:59When none existed.
04:00When the pain of the past is forgotten, it doesn't feel good.
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