Rope does the trick

Kari,a village in Maharashtra,is home to some of the countrys finest rope gymnasts.

Near a Ganesh pandal in Kari,a village 155 km from Pune,people stop by to watch a group of girls perform. Togged in tight black shorts and the white tees,the 15 girls go about their business with easeperforming stunts on a suspended rope. The girls are the star gymnasts of the village,drawing appreciative glances and cheers every time they skillfully negotiate the rope. Seven of them have represented Maharashtra in national rope mallakhamb competitions,the others in state-level competitions.

Mallakhamb or pole gymnastics involves performing stunts on a wooden pole. The girls of Kari village have perfected a variation of the sportthe rope mallakhamb,which involves stunts on a rope.

Kari is a farming village with paddy being the primary crop. It is hardly a kilometre away from the pilgrimage centre of Sajjangarh. But today,Kari owes its popularity to its gymnast girls.

All the girlsfrom the chirpy seven-year-old Tanuja,to the shy 17-year-old Priyanka Pawar,belong to very poor farming families. Most of them go to school,do the washing and cleaning at home,cook and work on the farms and then find those crucial two hours to practise their favourite sport.

Coming here and practising keeps us going throughout the day. It is one thing we look forward to, says Pawar.

Ashwini Kirdat,another national medal holder,says,I am a first year student of B.Com and walk 2.5 km every day to the nearest bus stop which takes me to my college. On my days off from college,I cook,wash and take care of my siblings. But mallakhamb is the source of all my energy.

Apart from Pawar and Kirdat,the other girls who have gone up to the national level are Priyanka More,Varsha More,Pooja Chauhan,Aruna More and Rutuja Barge.

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These girls were brought together by Maya Jadhav,a primary school teacher and their trainer. I was the youngest of four daughters born to my parents and I was welcomed into this world with tears. As I grew up,I wanted to do something that would make my parents proud, says Jadhav. When she was in class VI,there was a mallakhamb demonstration in her village and Jadhav was impressed. Luckily for Jadhav,her parents were supportive and she learned mallakhamb,performed across the country and thought she must encourage other girls to take up the sport. The sport changed my personality entirely and filled me with an unusual confidence. I wanted more girls from the village to feel the same, she says.

It took Jadhav a lot of time convincing parents to let their daughters learn the sport. The main problem was that the girls had to wear shorts and t-shirts. I asked them,dont women fold their sarees while working in the fields? Some of the parents got my point, she says.

Today,the parents as well as the villagers are much more supportive. Kari villages gymnasts are visiting neighbouring villages and teaching the sport to girls there. Since this sport has given us so much,we want to spread it to as many people as we can. We walk to the nearby villages,just to teach these children this wonderful sport, says Pooja Chauhan,who won a gold medal in the national mallakhamb competition in Madhya Pradesh,defeating 200 participants from across the country.

Vaman Pawar,the village sarpanch,says,These girls have made us proud. The entire village is there to back them.