How Taunts, Poverty And Faith Couldn't Stop Nausheen Naz's Run

It begins like a hockey match slow, uncertain, with the whistle blowing in a dusty corner of Seoni. No stadium lights, no roaring crowd. Just a 15-year-old girl with a broken stick, stitched with cloth and hope, dribbling past hunger, doubt, and disbelief. On the sidelines, life wasn't cheering. It was defending hard. But, the match begins not on a hockey field, but inside a home where every step forward was questioned. "You are leading your daughters down the wrong path... this is not allowed in our religion... look at them, playing in half-pants," relatives would say. For a year and more, before any support arrived, those words echoed louder than any stadium cheer.

But her father, Ehfaz Khan, kept brushing them aside. A daily-wage labourer, he chose belief over fear saving whatever little he could to travel and watch his daughters play, even as one studied in Class 10, another in 11, and the youngest in 7. That was the first whistle of Nausheen Naz's match played against society itself.

Speaking to NDTV, her father lays bare a life stitched together by survival. "I earn between Rs 200 and Rs 400 a day... I buy used cardboard waste paperboard and resell it for Rs 10 or Rs 11 per kilogram. It's scrap work," he says. Seven children depend on him five daughters and two sons with three daughters already stepping into a world he could barely afford.

"In Seoni, there is a turf ground right next to the bus stand... but I could not buy them hockey sticks." What followed feels less like sport and more like quiet rebellion. "There was a boy in our neighbourhood who had quit hockey. A broken stick was lying in his house. Nausheen called him 'Mama' and asked... he said, go check in the corner."

She found it abandoned, forgotten. But not to her. "She took it to a blacksmith... two nails were hammered into the handle... she wrapped cloth around it, used Feviquick to hold it together... and played like that."

No kit. No backup. Just a child rebuilding a broken stick and with it, her own destiny. While others stepped onto the field with polished gear, Nausheen stepped in carrying hunger, responsibility, and a quiet fire that refused to fade.

Second quarter, and the tackles get harder. Seven siblings sharing space, food, and dreams. A father working through the day, and often into the night, chasing extra labour just to keep the household afloat. Yet, the game doesn't stop. Nausheen keeps pushing forward, her father now standing firmer on the sidelines no longer unsure, no longer listening to the noise only to his daughters' footsteps chasing the ball.

Then comes the counterattack the breakthrough. In 2023, the Madhya Pradesh Hockey Academy spotted her talent. The field suddenly widened. Training, diet, equipment things once out of reach became possible. "The academy has been her lifeline," her father says. But even now, at a national camp in Bhopal, Nausheen borrows gear, training among players who own multiple kits.

Third quarter, and she is unstoppable. At the Sub-Junior Nationals in Rajgir, Bihar, she slices through defences nine goals, top scorer, player of the final. The same girl once questioned for her clothes is now being watched for her goals. In the stands, her father breaks down. "I shed tears seeing her play," he says. The voices that once taunted now stand beside them for photographs.

Final quarter. The goalpost is in sight. Selection for the Under-18 Asia Cup in Japan is within reach. "If anyone stops my daughter now, they will face me first," says Ehfaz Khan no longer defending, but leading from the front.

The final whistle hasn't blown yet. But Nausheen Naz has already won the toughest game of her life against poverty, prejudice, and pressure. From a broken stick in Seoni to the brink of wearing India colours, her journey is not just about hockey.

It is about a family that refused to give up no matter how hard the match became.

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