She flips, she slides and she carves. She is a thrasher after all. But behind the 23-year-old perky face lies a story of survival, resolve and hope. Asha Gond has lived up to her name. The tribal girl from a small village in Panna district of Madhya Pradesh has skate-boarded her way out of poverty – and into the eyes of the international audience.
The journey was made possible through Janwaar Castle, a skatepark founded by Ulrike Reinhard in 2015. The German writer, publisher and social activist first visited India on a work trip in 2012. Reinhard, who is in her early sixties and lives out of a suitcase, has travelled through the length and breadth of the country since then, navigating dirt tracks – and curious stares – on her Bullet motorcycle.
Asha, born to a landless family, grew up watching her mother toil in others’ fields. As a teenager, she could see her future as a young bride, as most girls in her tiny village of Janwaar were married off before they turned 18. And then came Reinhard, who envisaged a different future for the children as she set up the skatepark in 2015.
“When I first tried skateboarding, I felt that I really wanted to do this,” said Asha, who represented India at the World Championships in Nanjing, China in 2018. “It’s something I really love,” she beamed.
For Reinhard, the idea of setting up a skatepark arose due to the contrast it presents with the typical rural life.
“On the one hand you have a very traditional, close entity like an Indian village, and on the other, you have a counter-culture like skateboarding,” said Reinhard, who was in Delhi to launch her book, Skater Girl Asha: When you DARE to dream!
“Skateboarding has everything that an Indian village does not. It’s all about finding your own way, it’s about being rebellious. So I thought if I bring these two together, then some change will happen,” she added.
And change did happen. It opened new avenues for children, brought the tribal and Yadav kids closer, and made girls like Asha look at a future outside domestic life. Besides skateboarding, the children pursued lessons in English and maths. The skatepark followed a ‘no school, no skateboarding’ rule. The venture was also believed to be the inspiration behind the Netflix film Skater Girl, although neither the initiative nor Asha were given credit for it.
The path of course has been far from easy for Asha. As a tribal girl, she had grown up witnessing and experiencing poverty as well as the social divide between the tribal and Yadav families in the village.
“As Gond adivasis, we weren’t allowed to mingle with the Yadav kids, and sat at a distance from them at the school,” said Asha. “So it came as a huge step in the village when all the kids had to share skateboards. A lot of walls were brought down then.”
She also broke barriers within the family, backed by her mother’s support.
“I wanted to excel in skateboarding to also show them why I was unwilling to get married,” said Asha. “Now I would love to see other girls like me from all over India come out of their comfort zone and stand up for themselves.”
Pallavi Srivastava is Associate Director – Content at Village Square.
