Naruto, Luffy and Jimmy: The unlikely trio which has driven Ishika Chaudhary’s hockey dream
Naruto, Luffy and Jimmy: The unlikely trio which has driven Ishika Chaudhary’s hockey dream
On this day, exactly a year ago, a 23-year-old Ishika Chaudhary had momentarily breathed life into the Indian women’s hockey side after drilling in the equaliser against Germany in the dying seconds of an Olympic Qualifier fixture to force a shootout at the Marang Gomke Jaipal Singh Astro Turf Stadium in Ranchi.
The Indians eventually went down 3-4 in sudden death and lost 0-1 to Japan the following day in the third-place playoff to lose out on a ticket to Paris.
After the unprecedented fourth-place finish at Tokyo, that non-selection would have felt like hitting rock bottom.
All of it’s fresh in Ishika’s mind. Like it happened only yesterday. However, she isn’t one to dwell on the past. Rather, with a mature head on young shoulders, Ishika has decided to welcome the ‘new phase’ with open arms.
“It wasn’t so good for us when we didn’t qualify. But the players soon realised that this was a completely new cycle, and everyone started focusing on how they could individually develop day-by-day and then tournament-to-tournament. The Women’s Asian Champions Trophy was a start (India won two back-to-back titles in Ranchi 2023 and Rajgir 2024). There has been a change in mindset, and the journey has only begun. We are in the learning phase, where we are looking to polish our game. The Pro League is also there, which will help us grow further. There is a renewed focus on fitness as well. It’s a new phase, I would say,” Ishika sums it up.
The Gwalior-born defender had found emotional support in her friends, family, and two gentlemen from the Hidden Leaf Village and the Windmill Village.
Google Maps would throw up an error if one goes searching for these places on the application, for the residents are none other than Naruto Uzumaki and Monkey D. Luffy, fictional protagonists of popular Japanese manga series ‘Naruto’ and ‘One Piece’, respectively.
When asked to pick a favourite, Ishika goes: “Not fair. The two anime fan bases will go ‘Ohh, nooooo…’ I think both are really great. They have helped me in different ways. I started watching Naruto first and then I went with One Piece. Resilience is something I have learned from Naruto. And Luffy taught me how to explore, try new things and have fun in life.”
It was Ishika’s younger brother, Ishan, who introduced her to the world of anime. “It’s been two years since I started watching anime. My brother asked me to give it a go in the coronavirus lockdown. But I mostly decided to read the manga. I got so addicted that now I have moved ahead of my brother,” Ishika laughs.
While Ishan may have contributed a lot to his elder sister’s mental well-being by transforming her into an ‘otaku’, it was surprisingly the family dog, Jimmy, a Pomeranian, who might have willingly or unwillingly pushed a younger Ishika to take up hockey.
“I was studying for my 8th standard exams. To be honest, I used to play everything but had never thought of pursuing sports professionally. My parents were quite strict when it came to my studies. But my father had always insisted that if I continued to play, either I became serious about it or I continued with my academics. But this one day, my mother saw this girl from the neighbourhood, who was standing outside the window with a hockey stick and asked her to take me for a run at this local ground near our chawl. I had played cricket and football but never given any thought to hockey. I didn’t know anything about it because there was hardly any telecast those days.
“When I returned home, I found out that my dog had chewed on all of my books. I remember getting so angry and blaming my mother, saying if I didn’t do well in the exam, then it would be her fault.”
But it didn’t take Ishika even a year to fall in love with the sport. Her father also became so invested in building Ishika’s career that he started taking her for morning runs every day so that she could stay fit. Signing up at the Madhya Pradesh State Women’s Hockey Academy of Excellence in Gwalior further helped the cause.
“MP has really invested a lot in sports. Especially the MP Academies, and it is not just hockey. Be it water sports or judo, their facilities are world-class. And the best part is they provide these facilities to the kids who are yet to make it big. Young talent is sent on exposure trips. Some have even gone to the Netherlands to play for clubs there. This is where the mental barrier breaks when you get to play in the big leagues. Playing against and with foreigners does not remain like a mental block anymore. It gets normalised. More than the seniors, the juniors and sub-juniors are sent on these tours,” she says.
The development of these Excellence Centres gave Team Sportstar one of the many reasons for nominating Madhya Pradesh for the ‘Best State for the Promotion of Sport’ honour at the ACES Awards 2025 to be held at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai on February 14. You can vote for your favourite athlete in the ‘Popular Choice’ categories by clicking
Madhya Pradesh has recently shone in domestic age-group hockey tournaments across the country. Its women won a maiden Nationals title in February 2023 and then went on to win gold at the National Games. The boys won the Junior Nationals later that year in June. The State Academy also scripted a record 20-0 victory against Citizen Hockey XI at the Khelo India Junior League 2024.
For Ishika, this doesn’t come as a surprise at all. She says: “There are two turfs on the same campus. There are floodlights. Things are very convenient. Gyms are within walking distance. Gwalior Hockey is newer if you compare it to other regions, but MP is winning medals on the national stage. It is deservedly reaping the awards of a brilliant grassroots development programme.”
Ishika also heaped special praise on former sports minister of the State, Yashodhara Raje Scindia. “She is very invested. She still watches hockey. She has a special connect with the sport. She keeps asking senior players to come and interact with her players. She has done great.”
Ishika became the first player to be sold at the auction of the inaugural Women’s Hockey India League, a franchise tournament fashioned on the lines of a men’s competition of the same name that has been relaunched after seven long years in December 2024, for ₹16 lakh.
Now turning up in the colours of the Odisha Warriors, Ishika believes akin to how HIL changed the landscape for Indian men’s hockey, it is going to have a positive impact on the women’s game.
“The timing is impeccable in the sense that the very moment women’s hockey saw a dip (not making it to Paris 2024), the Hockey India League (HIL) decided to come along and give us hope. We are getting the opportunity to play with foreign players who have a good experience of featuring in the Olympics. We get a look into the mentality of those who have been world champions,” she says.
She adds: “The mentality of the men and their way of playing changed after HIL, and a lot of players got the opportunity to showcase their skills. I’m expecting the same will happen with us. It will be good for women’s hockey overall, and not just Indian hockey. We will be learning a lot of things.”
The Warriors are the favourites to win the league as they are the strongest team on paper. Ishika concurs with the general notion.
“I think the team is a good mix of experience. It has a good number of Indian national team players as well as some really good young domestic players. Of course, our foreign players are also very good. We have Yibbi (Jansen), whose dragflicks are sensational. Some of the players and outside people are also saying that our team is really good. It’s balanced. But it increases the pressure at the same time as you have to live up to the expectations.”
Like Naruto’s Allied Shinobi Forces won the Fourth Great Ninja War, it is time for Ishika and the other Warriors to live up to their name.
