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  Jhili — a star in the making
13 Jul 2007
 

She is tall (6 feet), slim, fair and stylish. Complementing her eye-catching physisical features, she is endowed with natural talent to excel in volleyball. Meet rising star Jhililata Sena, who cornered glory by helping India win the in the gold medal in the SAF Games at Colombo earlier last month. A product of Sports Hostel, Bhubaneswar, the 19-year-old Jhili put up fine all-round performance, foiling opposition attacks at the net and scoring valuable points for India through her well-directed smashes. Despite being the junior most, the Orissa lass proved to be an indispensable part of the National team, playing all the matches in the SAF Games. This was the second time that Jhili did duty for the senior National team in a major event. The earlier occasion was the Asian Championship in China.
 

Hailing from Sarova, a sleepy village in Puri district, the soft-speaking teenager represented Orissa and Railway several times in the National championship before making her international debut in the 2002 Junior Asian Championship at Vietnam. Before graduating to the senior league, she played the Asian children, junior and youth championships many times. Born in a middle-class family, Jhili took to volleyball early after being encouraged by her brother-in-law Gadadhar Barik, a swimming coach. The raw talent in her started to blossom after she came under the tutelage of SAI coach Usharani Mohanty at the Bhubaneswar Sports Hostel in 1998. Mohanty believes Jhili has all the qualities to become the National captain one day. ````She workaholic. If you don``t stop her, she would go on with her practice from dawn to dusk. A disciplined and friendly sportsperson, Jhili should lead Indian women``s team in the future,```` observed the coach. Another speciality of Jhili is that she does not mince words to point out shortcoming afflicting the development of the game in the State. ````Orissa lacks basic facilities to groom quality volleyball players,```` she said immediately after returning from the SAF Games.
  ````Indoor volleyball courts with teraflex surface, a basic facility in modern volleyball, is still unknown here. The existing clay courts are too dangerous to attempt a dive. Proper adjustable poles are hardly available. Domestic competitions are held only occasionally. Under these conditions how can the game and the players prosper,```` she asked. ````If facilities do not improve, I would not like to play for the State again,```` said a dejected Jhili, who is now serving as Kolkata as an employee of Eastern Railway. The candid expression of the young international sportswomen may not go well with the managers of the game in the State. But has truth ever tasted sweet ?
   
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