The Goal on the Far Side

The morning in Shiulipara never waited for alarms. It woke up to the soft thud of football on the school ground and the slap of bare feet against wet grass. Rina’s first touch was usually a little heavy at dawn—sleep lived in the toes. She made it settle; a second touch, light; a third, a push into space. Then she chased.

“Breathe through the nose,” called Biren-da, his whistle swinging like a tiny pendulum near his chest. “Don’t argue with your lungs this early. Persuade them.”

Rina nodded, the ball under her sole. From the far end of the field, mist rose like tired smoke. Across the narrow canal lay Belpukur. Same trees, same clouds, different village. The rivalry was older than the culverts, older than the arguments about who first began the annual Puja, older even than the rusted goalposts at the panchayat ground. Shiulipara and Belpukur had a pact older than paper: every year, they would fight for the canal’s early morning water-release slot and for the football ground’s morning training rights. The winner took both for a year.

Rina played on the left wing for Shiulipara Women’s Eleven, a team that began as a joke and grew muscles very quickly. They trained under Biren-da because he had once been a stopper for a third-division club in Kolkata. His knee had betrayed him long before age did, but his eyes never forgot shape and space.

“Again,” he said now. “In-out-in. Body feint. The grass is not your enemy; your laziness is.”

Rina did as told. In her bag she kept Moti Nandi’s Kalabati stories, a second hand copy with the spine stitched once with green thread. She read a page before practice, one after, and sometimes one under the table during math tuition. Kalabati’s voice—dry, precise, fair—walked beside her when she ran laps. A sentence from last night clung to her mind: “You don’t chase medals. You chase the threshold of your own breath.” She wore that line in her chest like an extra rib.

On the other side of the canal, Belpukur’s girls trained too. Their captain, Asha, was taller than Rina by a head and faster by a step. Asha’s father had been a postman and a goalkeeper in police tournaments; the village said she learnt to catch the wind from his letters. Rina had never spoken to her properly, though they had nodded once near the ferry. Nod means enough, she thought. You don’t need words to measure a rival.

The monsoon had left the ground sloped with damp; pass by pass, the ball gathered a skirt of clay. The girls cleaned it on their socks, stamped a fresh triangle out of the grass. Today, they ran a pattern: left wing to center mid, wall pass, right wing overlapping. Biren-da watched the run without mercy. He stopped play when the distance between pass and receiver grew too comfortable.

“Ball and body must talk,” he said. “Not write letters.”

They ran again. Rina hit Jamuna, their center mid, on the instep; Jamuna cushioned and laid it back. Rina’s third step drew in the right back. Fourth step slipped the ball to Mira’s run on the line. They got to the byline; Mira cut it back to Rina’s late run. She put her foot through the ball, aiming for the near post roof. It smacked the bar and flew out like a bird that had changed its mind.

“Better,” Biren-da said. “Not good. But I have seen worse. And I have seen worse become better.”

Rina grinned, cheeks burning. The field had its own language, and today it spoke in short words.

After practice, she cycled home along the canal road. Women in red-bordered saris climbed down the steps with steel pots; a boy tried to catch a dragonfly with a thread loop; a dog slept with one eye open. She slowed when she crossed the little bamboo bridge that served as the village line. On a post someone had pinned the notice for the annual Sharat Cup. The panchayat had written with authority:

FINAL MATCH—SHIULIPARA VS BELPUKUR (WOMEN)—SUNDAY, AFTER MAHALAYA. WINNER GETS GROUND MORNING SLOT AND CANAL EARLY WATER RELEASE SLOT FOR ONE YEAR.

Below, in smaller letters: District women’s trials to be held on same day at Panchayat High School, 10 a.m.

Rina’s cycle wobbled. She stopped and read again. The letters didn’t change. Same day. Same time. She felt a hand on the back of her neck: panic, quick and cold.

At home, Ma had spread green chillies on the courtyard mat like commas. “Eat,” she said without looking up. “Eggs are expensive, but one for you. Don’t tell your brother.”

Rina ate and told anyway. Ma listened and shook her head. “Trials are not cows in the market,” she said. “They come again. Our canal water slot does not.”

“But the trials are for the state academy,” Rina said. “Coach said a scout will come.”

“And will that scout make the canal release earlier so everyone can irrigate brinjal and bitter gourd at dawn?” Ma asked, peeling an onion with a small knife. “Don’t answer. I know I am small. I have a small shop and a smaller bank account. But this is not small. For a year we’ll get the early water. That is not a dream. That is rice.”

Rina looked at her plate. She knew the math too. The village made a plan each year: who would flood their plots on which days, who would open the temporary gate to the field channels before sunrise. Early water meant not fighting with the heat, not cutting queues with curses, not the shame of going house to house asking for permission to divert flow.

“Biren-da will say play the final,” Ma said. “He is a team man. And you are a team girl.”

“Kalabati would say,” Rina said quietly, “do not accept a false choice.”

Ma smiled into the onion. “Then go find a true one.”

Shiulipara’s clubhouse was a mud room with a tin roof and a coil of old nets smelling of damp rope. That evening, nine players squeezed inside. Jamuna sat on the inverted bucket that served as a stool. Mira leaned against the wall. Fatema kept bouncing the ball on her thigh absentmindedly; the thump repeated like a small heart.

“Trials and final on same day,” Jamuna said, opening the meeting like a panchayat elder. “Opinions?”

“Play the final,” Fatema said immediately. “We lose the ground, we lose the dawn. Then what? Train under crows?”

“Go to trials,” Mira said. “We talk about making it big. Either we chase it or we complain.”

“What if we do both?” Rina said. The room turned to her.

“How?” Jamuna asked. “Split the team?”

“Not split,” Rina said. “Borrow.”

They stared. She swallowed once. “It’s eleven a side. But the rule allows up to five substitutions. We don’t have depth. They do. Belpukur’s bench is almost a team. They play with the boys often. We don’t. If we loan two of their bench players for the final—on paper—our starters who go for trial can rush back by halftime. The scout can watch the first half at the school, the second half here. We’ll coordinate the timings. The panchayat can push kickoff by one hour. We write to them as both captains. If Belpukur refuses, we go to the elders. Or we propose both villages nominate a joint letter. Asha is not unreasonable.”

“Belpukur will never agree,” someone muttered.

“Ask,” Rina said. “Let them say no with their mouths, not our minds.”

It was a proposal that sounded like madness until it did not. They had never borrowed players from the other village even in friendlies. Yet the rulebook allowed it if both teams wrote in. Biren-da was silent for a long moment. He was not a sentimental man with football; he was a realist who loved honest hard work.

“Write the letter,” he said finally. “But don’t beg. Give them something they want.”

“They want our morning slot,” someone laughed.

“They also want good football,” Biren-da said. “On Sunday, let both villages watch what women can do.”

The next morning, Rina stood on the bamboo bridge waiting. Fog made her cheeks wet. Asha came punctually, her hair tied high, a backpack hanging from one shoulder.

“You read the notice?” Rina asked.

Asha nodded. They stood looking at the canal. On the far bank, a kingfisher took a position like a coach.

“I have a proposal,” Rina said, and stepped through it without decoration or apology. Asha listened without blinking. When Rina finished, Asha was quiet long enough for a bicycle to pass, creaking.

“You want us to lend you our bench,” Asha said, lips twitching. “To beat us with our own players?”

“To show us both in our best light,” Rina said. “We will oppose the scout stealing any girl before the match. No trials after noon. The panchayat can write it into the fixture. We can both sign.”

“And why should I agree?” Asha asked.

“Because if you win after we get more options, you are truly the better team,” Rina said, eyes steady. “Because if we win after we play a better first half, you will have to come at us faster, and we will both have to sprint like we mean it. Because this rivalry is not a forfeit; it is a test.”

Asha inhaled. She laughed, short and surprised.

“You talk like a book,” she said.

“I read,” Rina said simply.

“Bring the letter,” Asha said. “Let me show it to our coach and our elders. If they refuse, we will still play. If they accept, we will play better.”

Panchayat meetings smell of starch and fenugreek and old paper. The elders heard both captains, argued about pride and precedent, then argued again about pride. At last, Haripada, who was old enough to remember the canal being dug anew after the flood of ’79, tapped the table with his knuckles.

“We have a chance,” he said, “to show the whole block that our girls play not just with legs but with heads. The rule allows borrowing with both signatures. Write to ensure trials are morning, match after noon, kickoff four o’clock. If any scout tries to poach, we will send him to drink canal water.”

There were murmurs, nods, a few shakes. Then the headman wrote the letter with decisive strokes. The scout’s timing, the kickoff shift, the borrowing clause—each in place, each stamped.

When it was done, both villages seemed slightly taller. The boys teased less in the street. The women buying fish at the market haggled and, in between, asked who would mark Asha on the right flank. The grocer kept a secret stash of bananas aside for the teams. The man who sold tea at the bus stand wrote “Shiulipara vs Belpukur—Come!” on a piece of cardboard although he had never written a sign before.

Rina trained with an urgency that heated her blood even on the days it poured. She did the old-school exercises too: pushing a bicycle tire up the slope, hopping on one leg, crouch-walks from goalpost to midfield. Biren-da added small things that made big differences. “Two touches, always two—no more. First touch to space, second to intent. And when you shoot, believe the net will move.”

At night she re-read Kalabati. Not to copy the narrator’s voice but to remember the discipline of it. Kalabati took the emotion of sport and cut it clean with reason. Rina tried to imagine what Kalabati would notice: the tilt of the ground, the direction of the first throw-in, the way the sun might be in the keeper’s eyes at four-thirty.

Usually, there is one day before a final when your body betrays you. The calf tightens, the mind misfires, the worst noises come out from the darkest cupboard. For Rina, it was the Friday before the match. In a small-sided game, she twisted her ankle in a dip near the touchline and fell, breath snatched. Jamuna and Mira got her up; Biren-da pressed his thumb along the tendon and shook his head.

“Nothing torn,” he said. “But swollen. Ice at home. Bandage. No heroism in practice tomorrow. You will jog. You will not jump. Nod your head.”

She nodded. That night, Ma boiled water and told her to soak, then wrapped the ankle with a cloth dipped in haldi. “Tomorrow, no running,” Ma said. “Sunday, run like life. And listen to your coach more than you listen to your fear.”

She slept thinking of her first step, not her last.

Sunday came with brass. The band from the next town walked past the canal, testing their lungs before the Puja season. Children flocked behind like small parrots. By ten, the school ground had women in salwar and saris practicing short passes while the scout and the district selector sat on chairs borrowed from the library. Rina and three others from Shiulipara reached sharp at nine-thirty, finished registration, tied bibs. Asha and four from Belpukur were there too, hair pulled back smooth, boots tied double.

The drills were honest, no showmanship. Cone weave. Two-touch passing. Shooting from the D. Then small-sided games. Asha sliced one into bottom left, ankles soft as waterweed; the scout wrote something in his notebook. Rina kept to her plan: pass fast, shoot clean, no sliding tackles to test the ankle. She scored once from a Jamuna through ball—Jamuna had come too—touch wide of the keeper, then a toe poke to the far post. The scout wrote again.

At noon, the selector stood and raised a sheet. “Preliminary list,” he announced. “Final after Puja camp.” He read names. Jamuna. Asha. Rina. Two from Belpukur’s defense, one from our team’s right back. Others too. Girls cheered quietly, as if applause might break the luck. The scout shook hands with the teachers and, when he tried to speak to Asha and Rina, the headmaster—who had been a referee in his younger years and still carried that dignity—stepped in politely.

“Sir,” he said, friendly but iron. “Come to the match at four. Talk after. The ground is our temple, and today the puja is there.”

The scout laughed and nodded. “At four,” he said.

At four felt far and too near. Shiulipara’s eleven met by the pump house. Of the two borrowed Belpukur girls, one was a reserve left back named Tithi with a measured pass, the other a right wing called Paromita, fast as a guilty thought. They wore neutral vests, the committee’s condition to avoid any village’s colors on the wrong body. They smiled shyly; Rina shook their hands like they were distant cousins.

“We need you for forty-five minutes,” Rina told them. “After that, we’ll be back from the school if the list reading drags. By second half, the sun will be lower, and the wind will favor the canal end. We must attack from there then.”

Jamuna had drawn small arrows on a cement bag with a charcoal. “They press high,” she said, pointing. “Their right back loves to go up and forgets to come back. Space behind her. Rina will pin her. Mira will invert. Fatema, hold the line. No silly fouls near the box; Asha hits dead balls like she owes them money.”

Biren-da said very little. He tied his whistle to the bamboo post, as if offering it somewhere. “Enjoy,” he said simply. “And when the moment comes, don’t choose the safe pass to be polite. Choose the right pass to be honest.”

The ground was a square of blunted green with two nets patched with different kinds of string. Men stood near the touchlines drinking tea so cautiously you’d think the match depended on the temperature. Women sat on mats, babies asleep with mouths open. Boys climbed the banyan. A poster of the Goddess from last year’s Puja watched from the school wall, her eyes painted with that special intensity that sees everything and forgives little.

Belpukur won the toss and chose canal end. The whistle cut the air; the ball trembled once in the center and then fled. Belpukur came fast, a press like rain. Shiulipara found a pattern in the downpour and began to pass out. Rina sensed the ankle for the first three steps, then the match took it, as good matches do.

In the 12th minute, Asha broke beyond their right back and swerved in. Our keeper, Sudha, stood tall and parried with both palms; the ball flew to the D where Jamuna met it with a head and a shout—“Away!”—and clarity returned.

At 18, the first moment arrived. Our right back, Piu, lofted a ball diagonally, a wedge of air with grass humming beneath. Rina checked, took two steps back, let the ball drop on her chest. The right back bit, hard. Rina killed the ball, let it roll across her left. Then she did the oldest, simplest trick she knew: a shoulder dip and a change of pace.

Space opens the way water opens when you step confidently into it. She saw the gap, heard in her head—first touch to space, second to intent—and touched again. Near post or far? The keeper had leaned slightly near; she went far, across body, low.

The net moved a little, an honest move. The banyan boys shouted like they had caused it. Jamuna grabbed Rina’s head and pressed her forehead to hers. “One,” she said. “No philosophy about it.”

Belpukur did not sag. They shifted like a single organism, re-arranged their positions, and came again, patience wrapped around ferocity. In the 31st minute, they won a free kick at the edge of the box. Asha stood over it, turned the ball with her toe so the valve faced up, and hit it with her instep like a violinist plucking a string they knew would sing. The ball curled and dipped; Sudha leapt and got a finger. Crossbar, out. Sudha laughed with relief that didn’t travel past her teeth.

Halftime arrived on the referee’s second long whistle. The score read 1-0. The sun had leaned west, and the shadow of the school roof stretched across the halfway line like an unrolled prayer rug.

“We go,” Jamuna said. “Rina, Mira, with me. Piu, you too if your bicycle is fast.”

They ran to the school. The scout stood at the gate as if he had been standing there all his life. “You made me wait,” he said cheerfully.

“Good football makes men wait,” Jamuna said, not unkindly.

He handed them small slips with dates for the Puja camp. “Final list after camp,” he said. “No promises, only chances.”

“We have another kind of promise to keep,” Rina said, and they ran back, slips held like talismans that worked only if you didn’t look at them.

They reached the ground to find the second half about to begin. Tithi and Paromita had played their forty-five with obedience. “They did not let anything pass,” Piu whispered, grateful.

The wind now came from the canal. Shiulipara had chosen to attack toward it. “We keep the ball low,” Biren-da said. “Wind is a liar at chest height.”

Belpukur pressed with math. They switched Asha to the left to run at Piu. She beat Piu twice, once with speed and once with absence of speed—a feint that made Piu step and stumble. The second time, Asha hit a cutback across the area. Their center forward met it sweetly; Sudha got down and deflected with her shin, and for a full second the ground forgot breath.

Time in a match is a procession of small governments. Each minute rules until the next minute stages a coup. In the 67th minute, Belpukur equalized. A corner swung in; in the scramble, our center back, Rupa, headed clear but not far. The ball fell to Parvati, their right mid, who struck through bodies. Sudha saw it late. 1-1. The banyan boys groaned in chorus.

“Good,” Jamuna said in the huddle. “Now we really play.”

The next ten minutes were what old men will call “proper football” when they sit and remember. Attacks came like well-aimed questions; answers were not rehearsed but they were correct. Rina found that her ankle had forgotten it was made of flesh and had become an argument in favor of the left flank. She received a pass, drew two, released Mira inside. Mira shot; the keeper palmed, Jamuna arrived and drove; a defender flung herself and blocked with brave ribs. The ball went for a corner. Rina jogged across to take it and glanced at the scout under the banyan; he was smiling, not at her, but at the match.

“Out swinger,” Jamuna said. “Near post run.”

Rina placed the ball slightly outside the arc, the way she liked, so that she could come across it. She took three steps back, one to the side, looked at the near post, and hit. The ball bent to the crowd near the six-yard line. Fatema timed her run like a thief who knew the guard’s schedule. She flicked with the back of her head. The net accepted. 2-1.

Belpukur kicked off like they had been waiting to do only that. They moved with a hurt kind of elegance. Asha took a throw, got it back, triangulated through our right half, stepped to the byline, and cut it back to the penalty spot. Parvati struck again, this time high. Sudha’s fingers felt the air but not the ball. Crossbar again; this time, in. 2-2.

There were eight minutes left. Somewhere, the smell of frying fish rose like an omen. Someone lit a beedi. The band in the next lane, practicing for the Puja, played two off-key notes and then stopped, as if the match had told them to.

Rina wiped her face with her sleeve. “One more chance will come,” Biren-da said calmly, as if ordering tea. “If you are there, be there fully. If you are not, be useful fully.”

The chance arrived in the 86th minute. Simple things created it. Piu to Jamuna, Jamuna to Rina, Rina to Mira. Mira to Jamuna, back to Rina. The triangle turned like a ceiling fan in slow motion and then suddenly accelerated. The right back stepped, then regretted. Rina drove toward the corner of the box, Asha tracking her. She stopped, planted, dragged the ball back with her sole, and turned inside. The center back approached, careful but late. Rina did not look up because she had looked up before the move began. She knew where the keeper stood, where the near post grew out of earth, where the wind had been tricking high balls all half.

She hit low and hard at the keeper’s feet, not to beat her but to offer her an impossible job. The ball skidded, the keeper dropped, and the ball refused friendship. 3-2.

There is little poetry to the seconds after a go-ahead goal late in a final. It is mostly arithmetic: clear lines, kick long, two banks, hands up, clock eyes. Belpukur came once more, twice; the second time, Asha tried from distance. Sudha punched like a boxer. The final whistle came as if it were late for the bus and decided to cut the last few steps.

The ground exhaled. Boys fell out of the banyan like ripe fruit. Women adjusted their end-pieces and clapped until palms stung. Two old men hugged and pretended they had not. Jamuna lay on her back, laughed without sound. Rina bent over, hands on knees, and suddenly noticed that her ankle existed again. It throbbed, proud.

Asha came and held out a hand. Rina took it and stood.

“You were right,” Asha said, sweat shining like an extra skin. “I don’t like it. But you were right.”

“You hit the bar twice,” Rina said. “The Goddess owed us.”

They both laughed then, because superstition is also a language and the match had been a conversation worth having.

The scout came with the headmaster and the elders. He clapped, not as a favor but as a statement.

“I have only one complaint,” he said. “I should have asked for three more notebooks.”

“We have more girls than notebooks,” the headman said, and it was not boasting; it was an invitation.

Rina looked up at the sky. It was a pale thing now, late afternoon’s shy cousin. Ma stood near the tea stall, wiping her hands on her sari as if she had been cooking in her mind. When Rina reached her, Ma touched her cheek with the back of her fingers, then her hair.

“Which truth did you choose?” she asked softly.

“The one that asked me to run both ways,” Rina said.

At night, they brought the early water to the canals with a small ceremony. Both villages gathered at the gate. Haripada said a few words about responsibility and then stepped back. Asha and Rina moved the bamboo lever together. Water came like a song you know the tune of but that still surprises you.

After, the girls sat on the school steps and shared bananas and a salty snack someone had brought in a shining steel dabba. The Puja drums were practicing somewhere distant; a rhythm traveled over the fields, hopping like crickets.

Jamuna nudged Rina with her shoulder. “So,” she said. “State camp.”

“So,” Rina agreed.

“Don’t grow a big head,” Jamuna said. “Grow a big lung.”

“I will carry both,” Rina said gravely, and they all laughed because a joke that came after a win tasted like a mango.

Later, when the village quietened and even the dogs lay with their noses under their tails, Rina took out her battered Kalabati and opened to the page with a folded corner. She wrote in the margin with pencil:

We did not choose between dream and duty. We made them choose each other.

She closed the book, put it under her thin pillow, and lay listening to the canal pretending to be a river in the dark. The next morning would bring cones and passes, old drills and new aches. The rivalry would not end; the friendship would not vanish. The ground would accept all this without drama. She would run again, not because the world asked her but because the far post had not yet told her its last secret.

And when she slept, she saw not a medal or a bus to a big city but the moment when the ball left her foot and the net moved—a simple proof that in a square of grass between two villages, a girl could measure the distance between who she had been and who she would be, one clean strike at a time.