This Robin’s singing a different tune

Miniter’s quest for her pet subject continued to dominate her thoughts and she shared her burden with her rugby teammates as well. But they too failed to generate a solution. It was a long distance phone call,however,to her best friend,based in Italy,that finally gave Miniter clarity.

“She just said,’What about rugby in India? Do women play rugby?’ And then it hit me: the subject just seemed so obvious,” she recalls. She immediately used the internet’s long-wide reach to get dope on her desired subject and the first thing she came across was a video of a national team camp in Mumbai dated 2009. The headline of the video interestingly read,’Rugby in India: Where the women are better than the men’,which then became the title for Miniter’s research project. “Even in its simplicity,the headline seemed to be indicative of so much. As a photographer,journalist,rugby player and gender studies scholar,stumbling upon this project felt like I was hitting the jackpot,” she says.

Miniter was fortunate to make it in time for the national tournament to get a taste of what Indian women’s rugby is all about. She found the competition to be a melting pot of a diversity of cultures and also a vehicle for the empowerment of women in what is known the world over as a male-dominated sport. “I was thrilled at what I saw,women from all over the country,some traveling as much as three days by train to get here,all came to play a simple,common game. They all had trained differently,had come from vastly different backgrounds and spoke different languages. Yet,regardless of all their differences,this sport brought them all together,” she says.

On similar lines,the gist of her photo-documentary is to uncover the world of Indian women’s rugby. According to Miniter,rugby has a masculine stronghold and the women in India,are going through a number of social changes while attempting to break into this sport. She hopes to capture these changes.

“If you apply this concept in India,what you see is a spectrum of very interesting social change. In so many ways,sport reflects culture. I hope to capture that reflection,on and off the pitch. Ideally I’d like to work with teams from around India so that I may gather a broader scope of the story. I want to paint a comprehensive picture of what is going on here,” she says. Miniter hails from a small town north of Boston in Massachusetts but attended the Marist College in Pughkeepsie,New York. Until college,she played all kinds of sports,but narrowed her focus on rugby once she was introduced to the sport in college.

“I played soccer for almost 15 years,ran track and field competitively,snowboarded and even made the cut to attend the USA’s bobsled team camp in Lake Placid when I was in high school. I had never touched a rugby ball until I was in college. But,there was something about it that appealed it me. It seemed right up my alley,” she explains.

Miniter went on to her college’s women’s side,making it all the way to the national collegiate tournament in 2009.

One month on,Miniter was given another opportunity to add value to her project. The inaugural Asian Women’s Rugby Tournament was held in Pune and Miniter got her gear ready. This time,however,she has fitted in well with the rugby community. And she even has an added responsibility to take care of. Miniter was told to put her camera aside for the time being as she was appointed as a sideline official for the tournament.