How far can you go for the love of your parents? What valye does a promise hold when it is made by a son to his dying father?
Hailing from Imphal, Manipur, 16-year-old Ninthoinganba Meitei is a midfielder in the Under-17 national team.
The story of this 17 years old young soccer lad is less of a sportsman’s but mir of a son who made a promise to his father on his death-bed, whom he has now lost forever.
Ninth has always been a die-hard fan of Cristiano Ronaldo and Sunil Chhetri. Also, the boy is exceptional and formally trained at taekwondo, which occupied him until of his beginning of the mainstream football journey.
Born in a modest family, Ninth’s father was a farmer and mother a fish seller.
Now, having made it to the national team, Ninthoi is playing in the U-17 World Cup in Delhi. He recalls:
I was returning from my Mexico tour the year before last year. Every time it was my father who would receive me, but this time my uncle was there at the airport. I knew something was wrong and it was then that my uncle told me that father wasn’t keeping too well.
As soon as he was home, he saw his sick and tired father who was lying on the bed, weak, agonizing in pain because of the thyroid cancer he had been suffering from.
Apparently, Ninthoi had been kept in the dark about his father’s condition because his family didn’t want him to get distracted in any way.
He says:
It was the toughest phase of my life. I couldn’t see my father like that but he promised to come and see me in Delhi for the World Cup. He even took my phone and recorded a message, a sound that you can hear when people cheer at the stadium.
Even though unwilling to leave his father’s side, he promised to make it to the national team and play in the World Cup.
I was crying when I said this. He was crying when he heard. I did not know it would the last promise I would be making to him.
A few months ago, while Ninthoi was preparing for a tour in Delhi, he got a sudden call from home that his father had then passed away.
A gobsmacked son could hardly contain his emotions under these circumstances.
Honestly, now I fear nothing. I don’t feel any pressure of playing in the World Cup. The only pressure I ever felt was to make it to the Indian team, just the way my father wanted it.
And now every time he pulls on the national jersey and steps into the field for one new battle of kicks, somewhere in that crowd of millions the 17year old midfielder finds his father looking at him with proud eyes, might be saying:
Yes, you have made it son.
