Kavita running barefoot in a saree · Photo: Indian Express
- 1,600 metres, barefoot, in a saree
- Practice that began at 3 a.m.
- A home guard job lost at the high jump
- A defeat that can be the first step
Those Sixteen Hundred Metres
A district ground in Ramgarh, Jharkhand. A trial run for home guard jobs is under way. Among the candidates in tracksuits and running shoes stands a woman in a blue saree.
Before the whistle, she slips off her sandals and sets them aside. She tucks the end of her saree tightly at her waist. Ahead lie 1,600 metres. Beyond them she can see a job, her children’s education and some security for her family.
The run begins. Barefoot, one step at a time on bare earth. As she overtakes runner after runner, the stadium erupts in applause. Someone records it on a phone. By the next day, the video has travelled across the country.
Her name is Kavita. She comes from a small village called Soso. That day she was not running on a track. She was running for her life.
Trouble Upon Trouble
Three years ago, her husband died of an illness. Before she could recover from that grief, her brother-in-law, who was running the household, was killed in a road accident six months ago. A mother-in-law who has lost both her sons, an elderly father-in-law, two children in Class 7 and Class 8. Overnight, the burden of five lives fell on Kavita’s shoulders.
She had studied up to the intermediate level, yet she went out as a daily wage labourer to feed her family. But she never let go of her hope of becoming a home guard.
3 a.m. While the village slept, Kavita would take her children to the village ground. She ran in the dark. Back home, there were the cattle to tend, the cooking, the housework. Then the day’s wage labour. And the next morning, the same run again. There was training at an academy, but it was too far away. So the village ground became her training centre.
From the same body that toiled all day, she drew the strength her dream needed. What woke her at 3 a.m. was not an alarm. It was a dream.
Not a Need, a Lifelong Dream
Many assume she was looking for a job only because hard times struck. Kavita says otherwise. The wish to wear a uniform, she says, was not born of hardship; it had lived in her heart for years. Alongside her longing to give her children a better future, she wanted an identity of her own. Amid the burdens of daily survival, she never let that dream fade.
In that trial, she finished the 1,600 metres in 6 minutes 45 seconds. In a saree, without footwear. The limit was 10 minutes.
Still panting after the run, she said:
“My feet are hurt. I am a little tired. But that is fine.
That one “that is fine” holds the whole meaning of willpower.
Where Do Our Young People Stand?
Kavita’s story holds a mirror up to all of us, and to the young most of all. So many young people have expensive shoes, gym memberships and fitness apps. Yet fail one exam and they collapse. Face one rejection at an interview and they give up, saying “I can’t do this.” How many scroll reels all night and are still asleep past ten in the morning?
Not everyone’s situation is the same. Poverty, illness and family pressure are real obstacles. We cannot dismiss them as a lack of grit. But Kavita had nothing either. No shoes, no coach, no time. All she had was a stubborn resolve to succeed. That resolve carried her from the village ground to the district stadium.
A moment of inspiration passes. Life changes only when the decision born of it becomes a daily habit. An hour of focused study today, starting the training you keep putting off, sending one application. Big journeys begin with small steps like these.
Willpower is showing your hope for tomorrow in the work you do today.
A Question for Society
Kavita’s story is not only an inspiration; it is a mirror. Ramgarh district has 284 home guard posts and more than 16,000 applicants. Kavita was not the only one running in a saree that day. Many women came straight from their housework and ran without proper clothes or training. If proof were needed of how readily women step forward when given a chance, here it is.
But a question remains. Why must a woman with an intermediate education live as a daily wage labourer? Only after the video went viral did she receive a tracksuit and shoes. That is good. But being moved by her wounded feet means something only if we help her train without hurting them again. And that goes for the thousands of Kavitas no camera ever catches.
She Lost the Test, Not Her Resolve
October 25. The same stadium. This time, the official test. This time, Kavita had shoes on. She finished the 1,600 metres within the time limit. One hurdle crossed.
Then came the high jump. First attempt. Second attempt. Third attempt. Three times, she could not clear the bar. She did not get the job in this recruitment.
The news hurt. The whole country had wished for her to get that job. We cannot measure how deeply disappointed she must have been at that moment.
But look at the numbers once. Her block had just 22 posts, only 11 of them for women. There was no one to teach her the high jump. She had been at the academy for barely a week. She did not lose on willpower. She lost on opportunity.
Defeat, the First Step to Victory
We should not look at this defeat with pity. We should look at it with respect.
A journey that began barefoot, in the dark, on a village ground, reached an official test at the district stadium. She won the running test. Only the high jump remained. That was not her failure. It was a compass, pointing to what she still has to learn.
At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Milkha Singh missed a medal by a tenth of a second and finished fourth. That defeat did not diminish his greatness one bit. The country still remembers him, not for a medal, but for the fight. Behind every story of victory, defeats like this serve as steps. We only hear about the victories. Nobody talks about the failures behind them.
Now Kavita has shoes. She has an academy. The whole country knows her name. Above all, she now knows where she must improve. Six months ago, she had none of this.
In our own lives too, we may face an exam, a rejection, a bitter result. We may take time to recover from the pain. We may ask for help. We may change our approach. But we must not stop. Rising again after a fall is true willpower.
We do not know which path Kavita will choose next. Let us wish with all our hearts that she gets the support she needs, and that her family finds a steady livelihood.
That day, the high-jump bar may have stood above her. But before her resolve, that height is very small.
Kavita may have lost this test. But that defeat is the first step of her journey to victory. The feet that ran barefoot must one day walk in uniform boots. Let us all wait for that day.
— Chermala Srinivas
