When 21-year-old Aparna E., a resident of Malappuram, first joined the selection camp for Indian women’s blind football team as a goalkeeper in Kochi in June, she had great difficulty communicating with her fellow players.
She had little proficiency in Hindi, the only language in which the rest of the 24 players in the camp conversed. The goalkeeper being the sole player with sight allowed on the field in blind football, she was supposed to organise her defenders by shouting out directions. It proved a big problem for Ms. Aparna, the only Malayali player in the Indian women’s blind football team to participate in the IBSA World Games, which is to get under way in Birmingham in the U.K. later this month.
But since then she has learnt a smattering of Hindi words adequate enough to see her though in the field. “Bhaag [run], chalo [keep going], daaye [right], and baaye [left] are the most common words used to keep the defenders on their toes. Now I have developed good rapport with our players,” she said.
