“You don’t have to tell anyone that you mop floors at a tuition centre. Just come in the morning, do the cleaning and leave. Nobody will know,” these were Rinku Singh’s father’s words to him before he began playing at the U-16 level for Uttar Pradesh. “But I didn’t like the idea,” Rinku once said, while narrating his ordeal.

The family of seven, which included five sons, found father Khanchand’s meagre income from delivering LPG cylinders door-to-door, insufficient for financial sustenance and most of them had to do odd jobs to make ends meet.