Family wanted Nisha Warsi to quit hockey, but she changed their mindset

Tribune News Service
Sonepat, August 3

Nisha Warsi (26), a member of the Indian women’s hockey team, lives in a 25 sq m house in West Ram Nagar colony in the city with her family.

She has not only brought a change in the mindset of her parents but also won laurels for the entire nation after the team’s sterling performance in the Tokyo Olympics.

Sohrab Ahmad, father of Nisha, told The Tribune that she was his third daughter.

We could not afford her expenditure on sports, but her passion for games and support of our relatives and her coach helped her achieve the goal, he said.

A tailor by profession and living in a rented accommodation, he was the only bread-earner of their family till 2016, when he had a paralytic stroke, making him quit his work.

Her mother, Mahroon, worked in a foam-manufacturing factory for a few years before Nisha landed a job with the Railways. We purchased a 25 sq m house in the same vicinity after she got a job in the Railways, said her father. “Now, Nisha is the only bread-earner for our family,” he added.

“Nisha and Neha Goyal (another hockey player) were studying in the same school. Nisha started playing at the age of 9,” he said. She went to play at the academy of Pritam Siwach in the industrial area.

Sohrab said, “I was thinking that she is a girl and what will she do by playing games. But I was wrong and my daughter has changed my mindset.”

Selection in the Indian hockey team and to qualify for the Olympics was her dream and she fulfilled this with her hard work. Not only the family members but all Indians are feeling proud today.

At one point, Nisha was about to quit the game as her family was forcing her to get married after she joined the Railways, but she wanted to play more for India, said Pritam Rani Siwach, who nurtured the hockey player in her academy.

“I called her parents to the ground and convinced them to allow her to play and fulfil her dreams,” said Siwach.

It was a very big achievement for our hockey team in which three players — Neha Goyal, Nisha Warsi and Sharmila — were from our academy, she added.

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