Open Field

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              "text": "In 2018, the photographer Paromita Chatterjee began documenting football training camps in West Bengal run by a non-profit called Shreeja India. The camps are meant to empower women from marginalised communities. They attempt to instil confidence, self-respect and dignity.",
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              "text": "Tecoma flowers, which the girls carried with them, lie on the field after a game. While football is especially popular in West Bengal, it is traditionally imagined as a masculine sport.",
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              "text": "Several sports have add-on expenses related to gear and equipment. However, football is a cost-effective and affordable game. “All you need are footballs and a space to practise,” Shib Shankar Dasgupta, the founder of Shreeja India, told Chatterjee.",
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              "text": "Many of the participants come from underprivileged communities—some are school dropouts faced with poverty, others have dealt with physical abuse. The camps attempt to inculcate team spirit and give them a new collective identity.",
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              "text": "Manju Baskey, a 14-year-old resident of Belkuli village in the East Bardhaman district, has faced physical and mental abuse from her step father. She was also forced to drop out of school for two years. When she joined the football camp, she was able to leave behind her struggles at home and focus on the game. She is gradually becoming one of the best players at the camp.",
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              "text": "Participants from the Rajnagar block in Birbhum district, a predominantly tribal area, gather before a game. Many of them are first-generation learners who are playing football for the first time in their lives.",
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              "text": "Women in sports face various psychological, social and cultural constraints. Such barriers prevent them from regular training and staying involved in the game.",
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              "text": "Savitri Hembram, a ninth-grade student, at the Birbhum camp. Her parents work as farmers and her brother is an agricultural labourer. She hopes to graduate from school and pursue football professionally. She said the game inspires her to be a better version of herself.",
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              "text": "When Oli Marandi joined the training camp at Birbhum, she was reticent and hesitated to speak up. A year later, she had grown into a successful player and student, scoring among the highest marks in school. She also teaches young children in a programme meant to educate first-generation girls from indigenous communities. In future, she hopes to be a footballer and a teacher.",
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              "text": "Khushnumah, a 15-year-old player at the Kolkata camp, spoke of how her neighbours would mock her for wearing shorts. “They questioned our need to learn a sport meant for boys,” Khushnumah told Chatterjee. In the end, Khushnumah’s mother protested and stood up for her, insisting that boys and girls are equal. “She is my girl and I want her to play football,” Khushnumah’s mother told the neighbours.",
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              "text": "When the girls play in an open field, many people stop to watch them. Some are disparaging and condescending. A few others, mostly women, are sometimes inspired and intrigued. For most people, however, watching women play football is a peculiar experience.",
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              "text": "The girls take a break during football practice. Their ages range from eight to 18. Shreeja India provides the girls with nutrition before games.",
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              "text": "Shanti Murmu, Puja Murmu and Anjana Hembram, members of the Santhal indigenous community in Birbhum district, look at a world map for the first time in their lives. In addition to field training, Shreeja India also conducts theory workshops to introduce the girls to the wider world.",
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              "text": "As women watched the girls play at the Bardhaman camp, it seemed to motivate them. “Whatever has been done in our lives we cannot change,” Chatterjee said the women told her. “But our children can do much better. Seeing the girls playing the game is very inspiring, we feel so free.”",
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              "text": "Sonali Soren, an eleventh-grade student and a resident of the East Bardhaman district, is among the best players at the camp. She has won state-level tournaments and is currently being considered for the national Indian women’s football team, to play in the 2024 Women’s World Cup. Sonali’s father is a marginal farmer with a small landholding. She hopes to one day represent India as a footballer.",
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              "text": "Sonia Khatoon, an eleventh-grade student, faced ridicule from those in her community and her family for wearing shorts. She challenged their preconceptions about gender and sport, and continued to play. She has now inspired her six-year-old sister, who also wants to grow up and play football.",
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              "text": "The sports attire gave the girls a new team identity. Often, neighbours and family members criticised the way they dressed. Because of such complaints, many girls changed at the field site, and not at home. In some camps, where there was no changing room, they often went into the forest.",
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              "text": "Soni Sharma, a 15-year-old player, enjoys a relaxed and uninhibited moment at the Kolkata camp. While it is customary to see boys playing football outdoors, girls are more routinely confined indoors. Playing football then becomes an act of defiance for the girls. In many ways, the game frees them.",
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In the early morning fog, a group of teenage girls in jerseys and fluorescent yellow socks stand in an open field. In the foreground lies a grimy ball and a goal post—its makeshift net newly fixed. In the distance, the girls stand in a line, spaced unevenly, some with hands clasped, seeming unsure about what is to happen, yet leaning in intently. Many are about to play football for the first time in their lives.

This was the scene at the Park Circus grounds in Kolkata when the photographer Paromita Chatterjee visited one morning in 2018. The girls were being taught football as part of a training camp organised by the non-profit Shreeja India, which aims to empower women from marginalised communities. Elsewhere on the field, boys played cricket, others jogged. But the crowds gathered to watch the girls.

What intrigued Chatterjee most was the reaction of onlookers to the idea of girls playing football. She heard disparaging comments from the public—“this must be some commercial”—and saw bewildered, smug expressions. When Chatterjee spoke to the girls on the field, a starkly different narrative emerged. She was struck by their enthusiasm and zeal, “the way they were ready to come to practice early in the morning.” Chatterjee said the contrast between the determination of the girls and the disdain from onlookers compelled her to pursue this as a photography project.