The U-17 football player has overcome all obstacles and through a difficult road to stand on the verge of fame and history.
The FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022 will be held in India in Bhubaneswar, Margao, and Navi Mumbai. A road connecting a rural village in Jharkhand to the main land is being constructed thanks to the massive international event. Astam Oraon, the current captain of India’s U-17 women’s squad, hails from that hamlet.
Astam is a native of the Gumla district’s Banari Goratoli hamlet in the Bishunpur block. The family of the football player is ecstatic that a road will be built in her honour.
Astam, the captain of the national squad, has travelled from a little village. The U-17 football player has overcome all obstacles and through a difficult road to stand on the verge of fame and history.
Heeralal Oraon and Tara Devi, Astam’s parents, depend on their little plot of arable land and their daily labour as day labourers to make ends meet. Astam was determined to follow her interest despite their financial difficulties. Heeralal works as a daily wage labourer, but his passion for the game is unwavering. His unending passion for football served as the motivation for Astam to establish a goal of becoming a well-known national player.
The family endured all the suffering in silence and tirelessly prepared Astam for a wider stage despite the immense financial hardship they were under. After Astam established herself in grassroots football, Heeralal brought her to Hazaribagh to hone her game under the guidance of some renowned instructors.
“A knee injury prevented my father from pursuing his passion of playing football. But his dream persisted in my mind. I competed successfully in school-level contests after receiving the required instruction. I started out in a little hamlet, but with perseverance and hard work, I have gone a long way,” remarked Astam at the FIFA U1-7 Women’s World Cup at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar.
Astam was called to Hazaribagh for a tryout in 2016 after performing well at several district-level competitions. There, she was able to make the cut. She had never had the chance to exercise away from her house before. There were athletes in the programme who had represented India’s age-group teams, including Sunita Manda, Pratiksha Lakra, and Sandhya Kashyap, which gave her faith that she would one day represent her country. She didn’t turn around again.
Her outstanding performance at the U-17 nationals in Kolhapur in 2019 was ultimately what got her into the India camp. Since then, Astam has been included into the Indian system at various age levels. She has been in the U-15 team, and earlier this year, she was a member of the SAFF U-18 championship-winning team. Astam participated in the senior India camp as well and made her team debut against Tunisia in a friendly match in 2021.
Astam has demonstrated via her tough route to achievement that one’s level of success in life is not always determined by their access to wealth. Particularly in athletics, talent and merit frequently make the difference between success and failure. Encouragement, good grooming, clear goal-setting, and persistent effort are all that are required.
Prasanta Patnaik