Bilal Ahmed stepped onto the volleyball court in Patliputra on Thursday to ‘play the biggest match of his career’. The teenager’s thoughts, however, were with his family in Poonch, where Pakistan had resorted to heavy artillery fire, targeting the civilian population.
Ahmed barely slept a wink the previous night and spent tense hours leading up to the 5 pm game. An hour later, he stood on the podium with a gold medal around his neck and tears in his eyes — Jammu and Kashmir defeated Uttar Pradesh 3-1 to be crowned Khelo India Youth Games champions.
“Tension thi bohot zyada (I was very tense). I was worried about everything that was happening there (in Poonch). But still, I tried focussing on the game because at that moment, it was also a very important thing for me and all my teammates. Somehow, I handled the situation,” Bilal, 17, told The Indian Express.
(From left): Bilal Ahmed and Wani Mahir (Express photos)
Bilal, whose father Mushtaq is with the J&K Police, grew up in Poonch, barely 5 km from the India-Pakistan border. On Wednesday night, the Jammu town was the worst hit as Pakistan escalated the cease-fire violations along the Line of Control. Artillery shells hit residential and government buildings, as well as public spaces, resulting in loss of lives.
Bilal said his family had to leave their home and move to safer places in Jammu. “My parents, full family, live there. In the middle of the night, suddenly, there were attacks. My family escaped without any harm, but the thought of their well-being was constantly on my mind,” Bilal said. “I told myself, ‘you can’t change the situation there. What you can do is give your all on the court’. I thought it would bring some respite to the people.”
The 6’5”-tall middle blocker’s initiation to volleyball was purely accidental — a local coach in Poonch noticed him, rather his height, at a wedding and asked him if playing volleyball would interest him. “I was young with no concrete career plans, so I decided to give it a try,” Bilal said. Within a few years, he became a part of a J&K team that had exited in the pool stage of the previous Khelo India Youth Games. This year, too, their chances looked bleak, given the volatile situation in the Valley after the terror attack in Pahalgam.
The team’s captain, Wani Mahir, said it was ‘very tough to focus on the sport’ following the terror attack. However, the team management gathered the players from different parts of J&K — from Poonch to Srinagar, Anantnag to Ganderbal and Baramulla — and set up a 10-day camp in Jammu.
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The help we received from our administration and the inputs from our coaches were crucial,” Mahir said. “The camp helped us focus completely on our game, and we entered the competition better prepared than before.”
Mahir, a 6’7”-tall middle-blocker, added ‘people back home wanted something to feel motivated again, something they could be proud of, no matter how big or small an achievement’. “And we just wanted to do that.”
After winning the final point, from an UP serve that crashed into the net, the J&K players broke into wild, emotional celebrations. Soon after those scenes of jubilation, there was a quiet reflection on the last two weeks. “Ek side se jo hua hai, woh mayusi ki baat hai. Woh insaniyat pe hamla hua hai. (On one hand, what happened (in Pahalgam) was devastating. It was an attack on humanity),” Wani, who hails from Srinagar, said. “On the other hand, we won, and we did celebrate the win. But even in those celebrations, we had all the victims of the attack in our mind and heart.”
Wani is now in Bangalore, appearing for the Team India selection trials. His teammate Bilal is on his way back to Jammu, where he will be reunited with his family. “However, I won’t be able to go home just yet,” he said.
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The sadness in his voice made way for hope. “We are the first team from J&K to win a gold medal in volleyball. Who knows, maybe some kid somewhere might get inspired to pick up a ball.”
