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Millennials: Field notes for sedentary women
The first female Indian footballer to play in England, Tanvie Hans, 31, on her initiative to get girls into a more active lifestyle
Bend It Like Beckham completed the 20th anniversary of its release earlier this year. When it first came out, one of the many young girls inspired by the possibilities it offered was 12-year-old Tanvie Hans. Today, 31-year-old Tanvie is not only the London poster girl for the musical based on the movie, but she can also boast of a football career she’d never have believed back then—playing for the Tottenham Ladies and Fulham Ladies FCs in England, and currently captaining the Karnataka state team and Bangalore-based Parikrama FC which competes in the Indian Women’s League (IWL). A British-passport holder because of her mum, she is grateful to the rule change that allows Overseas Citizenship of India card holders like herself to play for the state they live in.
“I knew it was my favourite sport from the moment I first kicked a ball,” is what Tanvie had told me when we first connected in 2016. We’ve stayed in touch since, even running into each other unplanned at a Nike training event in Mumbai in 2017. Incidentally, she tells me now, it was that very event just before she moved to Bangalore that cemented her friendship with Swetha Subbiah, a performance coach, with whom she eventually co-founded Sisters in Sweat (SIS)—’a community for women by women stitched together with sport and wellness’ as their tagline says.
Learning to play
SIS is the reason that Tanvie had to take a tough decision for the upcoming season.
“I’ve decided, for the first time, not to take part in the IWL because we’re expanding, our community is growing. I knew I had to make a choice at this stage. I’m going to use this time to build a team that can take over many of my responsibilities in the future so that I don’t have to face this challenge next year,” she says.
At the behest of a friend who wanted a “fun football-type session” for her and her girlfriends, Tanvie and Swetha booked a local five-a-side ground the following weekend. “We expected three or four women and a one-time event. But 17 women turned up! They were all mid-to-late thirties—they had either left sport or never played before. Swetha primed them with mobility drills to get their bodies ready; then I ran some football-based drills. The last 30 minutes of the hour and a half was just game time. Music in the background, a fun, light environment,” Tanvie smiles.
The session was such a hit that the women wanted the duo to organise it every weekend. In a year, they were a 400-strong community purely through word of mouth.
“We were doing it out of passion, covering the ground rent ourselves. After a year and a half, we realised that there was clearly a market that we were catering to—it was growing on its own because there is a need for it,” Tanvie explains.
The hunger games
Both the women behind SIS have come through the system and understand the lack of athletic opportunities for women.
“After school and college, women tend to drop out of sport and they certainly don’t see sport as a social option, whereas boys maintain their groups. That’s basically what we’re providing them—and we’re setting it up for them in such a way that they just have to turn up and have a good time, even making friends in the process,” says Tanvie.
She concedes that the pandemic helped their organic growth in ways that on-ground work might not have achieved in the same time.
“Sisters in Sweat was incorporated in early 2020, and then the pandemic hit. But pivoting to the online space helped us grow faster and reach more women, particularly outside Bangalore,” she says. “We have a lot of talent within our community: dancers, yoga instructors. We mobilised them to teach online sessions.”
Today, SIS has resumed most of their in-person sessions in Bangalore, adding basketball, touch rugby, and badminton to their offerings (swimming will start soon), though football will remain their flagship product. The community’s tagline of ‘sport and wellness’ permits a broad enough umbrella for organic growth, whether in the areas of mental health, well-being, nutrition, or others.
“We want to differentiate ourselves from ‘come, play, leave’. We want it to be wholesome, and every thought is geared to that, with lots of emphasis on community and bonding,” Tanvie explains.
Setting the pace
Already, SIS has seen its efforts rewarded. This March, they were part of Manchester City’s Women’s Month and their global Same Goals campaign. India on Track saw this synergy connected with them for online and offline activities throughout the month. After the month was over, the club asked SIS to be one of the stops for the ongoing Indian Premier League trophy tour. A coaching event, a training session, a meet and greet with not only the trophy but also City legend Shaun Wright Phillips! Tanvie gushes about this ‘absolutely incredible morning’ and the video about their origin story put together by India on Track that made it onto Man City’s social media pages.
“We’re hoping and they’re hoping that this will be a long-term relationship,” she says.
SIS is currently a team of six, serving a community of more than 2,500 members, mindful of the pace they’re growing at.
“We don’t want to overwhelm ourselves and drop in any way our quality or the intention behind the community,” says Tanvie. Sisters in Sweat launched in Mumbai this month, and they hope to launch in Gurgaon by the end of the year.
“We want to stabilise what we’re offering in Bangalore. When I say stabilise,” Tanvie elaborates, “I mean I want us to hit ‘house full’ on every single one of our offerings and events for a period. We don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver; we’d rather have it be the other way around.”
She stops for breath and adds: “Let’s see where we can take this.”
From HT Brunch, May 28, 2022
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