Bhawna Sharma finds it tough to explain what drew her to handball, but swears by its transformative effect. The sport, after all, has pulled her out of penury and placed her among the best centrebacks in the country. At the ongoing Asian Women’s Handball Championship here, Bhawna has been among the few shining stars for India that lie in the bottom half of the pool.

Led by Diksha Kumari, India are fielding a young team with most players from the victorious 2022 Junior Asian Championship squad. It was the competition wherein Bhawna first gave glimpses of her talent, scoring eight times in India’s 41-18 win in the final league game against Thailand that awarded India the title. She was also named Most Valuable Player (MVP) and was included in the tournament’s All-Star Team.

“I still look back fondly at that event because it gave me a lot of confidence. However, there is a marked difference in the level of competition at the senior level,” the 21-year-old, who was also part of the Indian team at the last edition of the senior Asian Championships in South Korea (2022) and the Hangzhou Asian Games (2023), said.

Bhawna seems to be coping well at the elite level, if statistics are an indicator. With 28 goals in four matches at the Asian Championships so far, she is the tournament’s leading scorer, followed by Sout Korea’s Aru Seo who has 23 goals. Presented by World Handball League (WHL) and organised by the Asian Handball Federation, the tournament saw hosts India beat Hong Kong 31-28 in their opener followed by a 32-30 loss to the previous edition’s semi-finalists Iran. Next, India lost 48-15 to Japan before bouncing back against Singapore with a 35-22 result.

“I think we have played much better than some of those scorelines. The match against Iran could have gone either way and such close losses are always heartbreaking. Then, we recorded most goals in the group against Japan. We can’t be satisfied with such small gains but they do give us the belief,” she said.

Hailing from Navgaon village in picturesque Solan district of Himachal Pradesh, Bhawna is the youngest of three sisters. All three took up handball at the village school and each of them was good enough to make the national team. While the eldest, 25-year-old Nidhi, has landed a government job and has stepped aside, Mitali (23) and Bhawna are part of the senior team.

“Growing up, we had no idea or inclination towards the sport. We saw our dad struggle to make ends meet. At times, putting food on the table was a task. Handball is also a means to give us a better life,” she said. Her father, Hem Raj, is a small-time farmer who doubles up as a car mechanic.

“He washes and repairs cars and works on other people’s fields. It is back-breaking work with little returns, and being the sole breadwinner of his family, raising three kids was always a challenge,” Bhawna said. That’s when the coaching couple Snehlata and Sachin Chaudhary stepped up. Bhawna was in Class VI at when Snehlata, a former India international-turned-political science teacher, introduced her to handball.

“In Navgaon, most villagers would marry off their girls by the time they turned 18. Handball gave girls some hope to carve a different life for themselves,” said Snehlata.

Gradually, the word spread about the coach-couple and more girls started to troop in. By 2015, Snehlata and Sachin moved back to the former’s native place in Mor Singhi, a small village in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh and started their handball academy. As of now, about 60 girls across age-groups stay free-of-cost in their residential facility while about 250 girls — including non-residential amateurs — are trained by them.

“What also motivates kids to join our facility is the prospect of getting two square meals a day, and Bhawna was no different. She, however, was very committed and never hesitated in putting in extra hours for training,” Sachin said.

Bhawna believes that the young Indian team, if groomed well, has the potential to make waves at the international level. As part of their preparation, the Indian team had a training camp at SAI NCOE Centre in Gandhinagar but such initiatives are few and far between.

“We need the right basics. Handball, for instance, is an indoor sport but most of the year, we practice outdoors for lack of facilities. We need a lot of work at the grassroot level,” she said.