Despite his family’s lack of electricity, young Ashakiran is racing to the top of Asia.
Despite his family’s lack of electricity, young Ashakiran is racing to the top of Asia. Ashakiran Barla wanted to call her mom in Jharkhand after she won the 800-meter race at the recent Youth Nationals in Bhopal.
A 15-year-old girl in the Naxal-affected Gumla area waited almost two days to speak to her mother after returning home. Ashakiran puts it best: “Jab bijli hi nahi hai toh phone kaise hoga? We don’t even have power yet, so it’s ridiculous that my mom has a phone.
Ashakiran has repeatedly asked the proper authorities to hook up his house in the Adivasi community of Nawaidh, roughly 100 kilometers from Ranchi.
My mom called me from a neighbor’s phone and told me the good news about my medal.
Ashakiran, who practices at coach Ashu Bhatia’s residential academy in Bokaro, claims his wife was unaware of his trip to Bhopal for the competition.
In 2 minutes, 8.45 seconds, Ashakiran won the Bhopal Nationals.
They guaranteed him a ticket to the Asian Youth Championships in Kuwait next month, where he is currently the season leader for the under-18 age group.
She won the event by a comfortable margin, winning by eight seconds (about 60 meters) over the second-place finisher, Laxmipriya Kisan of Odisha. The 2022 Jr Cali Junior World Championships semifinalists’ times were faster than the 2019 Asian Youth Championships gold medal performance in Hong Kong.
She’s a gifted young lady who hails from a modest family.
While she was still a little child, her father went away, leaving her mother to raise her and her three siblings alone.
She had great natural strength even before I began training her, which I afterward learned was acquired through long hours of labor in the fields of her rural community. Coach Bhatia, a former Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) in the Indian Army’s Sikh Regiment, raves about the athlete, saying, “She is incredibly motivated and never misses training.”
Coach’s role
Bhatia has been Ashakiran’s coach for the past four years at the Jharkhand State Sports Promotion Society (JSSPS) academy in Ranchi.
However, the schedule was thrown off by the COVID lockdowns and restrictions. About a year and a half ago, Bhatia opened his own academy in Bokaro. Of the roughly 70 kids enrolled, 90% are members of Adivasi groups.
He was eager to get Ashakiran, who had returned to her village after Covid, back to training as quickly as possible. So he started constructing dorms at his academy.
He might have just called Ashakiran’s mom under regular conditions. Bhatia, however, had to make the challenging and eye-opening journey to the athlete’s hamlet alongside another top coach.
It’s far out in the middle of nothing. To get to her house, we had to alight from the bus about 11 kilometers from the hamlet and walk through fields and woodland. The severity of their predicament only became clear upon our arrival. He remarks, “They only have one room, without even a kitchen.”
Ashakiran claims her mother has been chasing the city government for years to get them hooked up to the power grid but is near to the point of giving up.
Since my father’s death in 2019, my mom has been trying, but the authorities keep giving us the runaround.
Facts
Ashakiran, whose hamlet had a female literacy rate of just over 25% in the 2011 census, recounts how they were initially told they did not have a ration card and had their application repeatedly rejected.
Florence, her older sister, is also a promising athlete; in 2022, she won gold in the 200 and 400 meters at the All India University Championships in Bhubaneswar. The Barla girls see athletics as more than just a hobby—it’s a way out of poverty for their families. Her educator’s father died of cancer in 2013, and life improved little after that.
Because of the state my family is in; I still cry alone in my hostel room. My mother used to make one meal daily: rice and a watery sabzi. Many times we have gone to bed without eating anything.
According to Ashakiran, “meat was a luxury we could only afford on festivals and rare occasions.” Her family and their village are still struggling. There isn’t a water supply for any of the homes. Water must be fetched from the community well, located around 2 kilometers from her home. It’s 25 kilometers to the closest hospital.
Initiation
Ashakiran is unable to pinpoint what initially inspired her to take up jogging.
At the outset, she knew very little about sports. When a nun from the local church gave her her first pair of spikes, she didn’t know what to do with them at first. Sister Divya Jojo heard her exclaim, “Isme toh kante lage hai” (But these shoes have spikes).
I had no idea that such shoes existed, much less that they were required to participate in national competitions. Initially, I tried them on and was so unbalanced that I couldn’t even stand. “Up until that point, I had only worn flat-soled canvas shoes,” she explains.
Despite her recent success—she won three gold medals at the junior national level just this season—Ashakiran rarely has time to return to her childhood home.
Even when she does, she has to put a lot of thought into it. The closest stop served by the bus is around three kilometers from our house.
Whenever possible, I time my trip home to coincide with Gumla’s weekly bazaar, when I may ride home on the back of a truck. To return to the town on foot is perilous, as wild animals such as bears and elephants roam the surrounding forest. On numerous occasions when tending the fields, I have seen them,” she recalls.
Ashakiran has not given up on his lofty goals despite these setbacks. She hopes to compete for India in the upcoming Olympics in Paris. However, “I hope I receive an electricity connection soon” is her current and pressing worry.