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Suresh Kumar Dhruv: Full-back from back of beyond

From Chhattisgarh’s Gattakal village in the secluded forest belt comes Indian football’s rising star Dhruv .

Dhruv represented the Indian team at the 10-nation Asian School Football Championship. (Right) Gattakal is a settlement of 10-12 families but with no road connectivity and where sighting of tigers and bears is common. Express

Suresh Kumar Dhruv takes a long pause, before muttering, “sher bohot aate the…aur bhaloo. Din mein, raat ko … reh nahi paate the wahan (There were a lot of tigers… and bears. Be it during the day, or in the night. It got impossible to stay there).

Dhruv, 18, is talking about the start of his journey that has now brought him to Agra as a part of the Indian team that finished fifth in the just-concluded 10-nation Asian School Football Championship. It’s India’s best performance in 22 years, according to Indian team’s coach Ratnadeep Paul. Dhruv, a defender, stood out with his performances, especially in the 1-0 win over China.

But this isn’t your routine football story. This is a tale of a boy born and raised in the dense, unknown jungles of Chhattisgarh, cut-off from any human contact. A boy who left his village because of tiger menace and grew up in an ashram. A boy who didn’t know how to converse. A boy, who despite these hurdles, is now perhaps a step away from playing for one of India’s most iconic football clubs, Mohun Bagan. “In jungle, there was nothing. Just wild life and us,” he says, speaking in staccatos. “I was taken to the ashram 12 years ago. There I found football, and my life changed.” He isn’t exaggerating.

It’s tough to locate Dhruv’s village on Chattisgarh’s revenue map because it doesn’t exist. Gattakal is one of several tiny villages in Abujhmarh, one of India’s biggest forest areas but also the most isolated and inaccessible. Translated literally, Abujhmarh means ‘unknown hills’ (in local dialect, Abujh means ‘unknown’ while marh translates to hill).

There’s no presence of civic administration and there are no roads that connect the place to the rest of the state. It’s been like this since the British era and things have only worsened since the 1990s, when it became a Maoist hub. A place so dangerous, according to Paul, that even police does not go there. Dhruv was born here to a family of small-time farmers. Around his village, there’s nothing but barren land interspersed with dense trees. The Maoist grip is such on the region that there’s hardly any confrontation between them and the government anymore. At the heart of the area under siege, there’s an uneasy calm. The villagers, instead, face threat of a different kind.

Gattakal is a settlement of roughly 10-12 families, who’ve been living in these jungles for several decades, the geography leaving them vulnerable to attacks from wild animals. Dhruv’s memory of his childhood isn’t pleasant. “All I remember is trying to stay safe from tigers,” Dhruv, now a class 12 student, says. “They attacked and killed several people who lived around us.” It got impossible to live there, so in 2006, half of the families decided to abandon the village. Because there’s no road connectivity, the only way to get out of the place was by foot. It wasn’t possible for everyone, especially the village elders. “But the level of desperation was such that they just left some food and water for the elders who couldn’t walk and left the place. None of them have returned since,” says Swami Krishna Amrit Anand, the principal of Ramakrishna Mission High School that runs five centres in this region.

Dhruv and his family travelled several kilometers on feet to a village named Kasawahi, which is closer to Narainpur district. They had no clothes to wear or food to eat. And with no means to support his family in a new village, Dhruv’s father Surendra admitted him to the Ramakrishna Mission School immediately after reaching Kasawahi. “Every year, we take hundreds of children from the tribal areas. Dhruv came to us in 2006 and has lived here ever since,” Anand says.

Brush with civilization

It was Dhruv’s first brush with civilization outside the jungles. “He hadn’t worn proper clothes ever, so the first thing we taught him was how to dress himself. Then, we showed him how to use a tooth brush, toilet seat… it took almost two-three months to teach him all this,” Anand says. “After that, we taught him Hindi because he could understand and speak just Madia language.” Dhruv’s initiation to football was in 2008 during a physical education period. There were a few stray footballs lying on the ground, Dhruv casually kicked around in the beginning but gradually started to take the game seriously. “I don’t know why I like football. But it just feels liberating to be on the field,” Dhruv, a fan of Real Madrid and Portugal defender Pepe, says.

Within years, he became a part of his school team and has been the captain for the last couple of years. He led his school to multiple state titles and, in 2017, was adjudged as the best player in the Subroto Cup – an all-India inter-school tournament. That put him on the radar of the scouts who were selecting players for the national team for the Asian School Championship. “He has strong core and a calm head, which is important for a defender. He can read the game well, and is a strong tackler. He’s still raw in some areas, but will only get better,” says Paul, the coach of Indian team. On Tuesday, Dhruv was felicitated by his school on his return from the Championship. The boy who didn’t have clothes to wear was paraded around in a blazer. In a few months, he’ll have to leave the ashram, as per their policy that allows them to stay on campus only till class 12. According to Anand, officials from Mohun Bagan had enquired for Dhruv a few months ago. “They were impressed and had said they’d sign him after the Asian School Championship,” he says.

But Dhruv isn’t concerned about his next destination. “I’ve come from the jungles. Any place I stay will be better than that,” he says. “I don’t care where I go as long as I get to play football.”

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