The ‘Dangal girls’ of Visakhapatnam Agency

15 tribal girls are taking the mat by storm participating in national-level tournaments

The moment one talks of the Agency areas of Visakhapatnam district – the first things that comes to mind are the Maoist movement, the pristine forested areas of the Eastern ghats and rampant cultivation and smuggling of ganja. But there is a brighter side and that is being quietly taken forward by a batch of 15 girls from the remote tribal villages, spread across the 11 tribal mandals.

They have picked up the sport of wrestling, which is still not a common sport in the State, and all of them have participated in a few national-level tournaments, including in the Khelo India Youth National games.

Hand-picked by their coach Ambati Nookaraju, the girls are a motivated lot and on the occasion of International Women’s Day they vow to keep the national flag flying high by winning medals in the national and international games.

Most of them come from remote tribal villages which do not have road access or any form of connectivity and the sick have to be carried for miles on makeshift ‘dolis’ to the nearest hospital. They are from the lowest economic strata and getting a full meal per day was difficult, said Mr. Nookaraju.

“But now we are doing well and we have a coach to take care of us,” said 17-year-old Devamma, who has already represented the State in four national-level events and was recently the only girl from Andhra Pradesh to be selected for the ‘Khelo India Youth Nationals.

The girls said that they were unaware of the game till they landed up at the ASRM School in Koyyuru mandal.

Here we came to know about the story of the ‘Dangal girls’ - Geeta Phogat and Babita Phogat- the daughters of Mahavir Phogat, and how they fought against odds to achieve glory. For us our coach is ‘Mahavir Phogat’ , said J. Maheshwari who hails from an interior village in Muchingput mandal, a Maoist hotbed. She has participated in at least three national events and had to compete with girls from Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and won a bronze medal in 2019.