The Olympics dreams of Jharkhand's hockey queens

Jharkhand loves hockey and over the decades, the state has produced many hockey stars. Now Nikki Pradhan and Salima Tete seek to add a new chapter to that proud tradition

By Deepti Patwardhan


Nikki Pradhan and Salima Tete in action for India.

Salima Tete took her first steps in hockey on a dusty ground speckled with stones, in a small hamlet in Jharkhand’s Simdega district. “My friends and I would remove the stones ourselves, try to make the ground as smooth as possible and mark temporary goalposts,” the teenager recalls. In the absence of proper hockey blades, they would use wooden sticks. It usually doesn’t take much for a game of hockey to kick-off in her part of the world.