Hey, Virat Kohli… Have you ever played cricket on a wicket quite like this?

To play a game that everyone around them treats like religion (Virat Kohli being the reigning deity). To push through, enter this public world, and make it their own. To be able say to anyone asking – ‘I am going to the ground to play cricket!

'Ek Saanjh Meri Saanjh' (One Evening, My Evening) is the campaign KMVS ran in 100 villages in 5 blocks of Bhuj, where being a teenage girl means a life of household chores, care-giving to younger siblings or doing school work. Rarely are young girls allowed out on their own, without a watchful elder, because they must be ‘kept safe’ until marriage. The campaign dialogued with girls, with families, with the community – to let young girls out of their homes, and into the playgrounds, parks and fields of the public commons. To let them experience, even just a few times a month, the liberation of being their own person, without a guard; to let them learn to feel safe in the public; give them a space they can call their own. A space to talk, laugh, share and play. To give them the luxury given so easily to men – the luxury of recreation.

When 24 excited young girls of Nattharkui village in Bhuj Taluka, finally stepped out one dusty evening into their village ground, as part of Ek Saanjh, Meri Saanjh, cricket is what they said they wanted to play! This was their evening, and though they had never played it before, except in secret imaginings, that evening it was cricket! Other games followed as well.

Having tasted freedom once, the girls have bravely declared they want more. They are taking up a demand with their Gram Panchayat, for a village ground just for girls and women. A ground they can call their own.

Dear (female) reader, if you ever happen to visit Bhuj, and get that inexplicable cricketing itch, give KMVS a call. We’ll get you to Nattharkui, where you may just catch the most enjoyable girls game in town.