Amartya Pandey

The 2010 FIFA World Cup planted something in him long before he had the words for it. A year later, when India lifted the Cricket World Cup in 2011, it was cricket, not football, that became his first real obsession.

In second grade he joined Don Bosco Cricket Academy. His friends played cricket too, and it felt natural to fall into step with them. Through fourth grade, cricket was unmistakably his sport.

The 2014 Football World Cup changed that, and this time the pull was stronger. Strong enough to cause a rift at home that lasted nearly two years.

His parents felt he was better at cricket. They worried about what they read as football’s culture, the jerseys, the shows, the noise around it.

By 2016 he was playing seriously. Arsenal Soccer School gave him his first taste of structured football. By seventh grade he was representing the school team. The following year, he was made captain of the middle school team. He joined Hindustan FC, began competing in club tournaments, and by ninth grade was training mornings at school and evenings at La Liga football. These were his most football-saturated years, full of early exposure and a growing sense that this was who he was.

The pandemic, in his own words, was “dog shit.”

The first few months were directionless. He started lifting weights without the maturity to manage it well. Relationships drained his mental energy, and a lot of time slipped away in a phase he now sees as wasteful.

Then later in 2020, a coach named Ravi sir entered the picture. Amartya credits him with much of his growth from that point on. Ravi sir trained kids near his house, saw something in Amartya, and the bond was mutual. In early 2021, Amartya played the Delhi Youth League, a private competition that put him on the same pitch as genuinely good players. He didn’t feature heavily in games, but the exposure shaped him. To this day, he believes playing alongside better players is the single best way to improve.

Around tenth grade, a new ambition took hold. College counsellors pushed him toward American universities, and one idea wedged itself in his head and wouldn’t leave. D1 or nothing. Indian football, he had been told, didn’t compare

A quiet understanding emerged. Football would be his ticket out.

Eleventh grade became, by his own admission, his best year. A string of club tournaments. Sports Vice-captain. He led the weaker Under-19 side at school zonals, and they beat St. Columba’s in the final. It wasn’t a flawless year, but it felt like momentum was finally on his side.

Twelfth grade was meant to build on that. Instead, it unravelled.

He was promoted to sports captain, a role he had partly applied for under the weight of expectation rather than genuine desire. It pulled him away from training, from the things that actually mattered.

Then came the injury. What he initially believed was an avulsion fracture in his toe, sustained while playing barefoot on a ground that didn’t permit shoes, turned out to be a partial tendon rupture. He didn’t give it the recovery time it needed. Sports captain duties, college applications, school work, everything competed for the three months he should have spent healing.

He missed the tournaments he had been counting on for application footage.The edge he had spent two years sharpening dulled in slow motion.

His SAT wasn’t strong. Counsellors warned him his chances at top colleges were thin. Then at a college fair, someone mentioned Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon. A Division III school launching its football programme. The coach got him on board with a 70% waiver.

The reality hit quickly. The training volume was unlike anything he had encountered. He developed tendonitis in both legs and suffered a partial Achilles rupture. In his entire first semester, he played six minutes of football.

The second season was better. Four or five practice games, and he played well, but only on rotation. Questions started piling up. About the football. About the degree. About whether any of it was worth the cost.

He came back to India without really telling his parents. His nani was in hospital. He had rushed out an Ashoka application, but in the scramble, it became invalid.

What followed were nine of the hardest months of his life. No college. No clear footballing path. A personal life he describes plainly as “messed up.”

Somewhere inside that stretch, in August 2024, he made the call. Football wouldn’t be a profession. He started training two or three times a week, mostly recreationally, and turned his attention to something he had always wanted to do. Make content. YouTube was the original dream. Instagram became the actual platform.

Then, in early 2025, Ashoka offered him a place as a visiting student. He poured himself into academics, determined to turn the visiting status into something permanent. By summer 2025, he was admitted full-time.

He talks about endurance. About how only competitive sport teaches a certain kind of resilience, and , and how you can spot its absence in people who haven’t been through it. With Ashoka secured, the dust has settled to some extent, but he isn’t satisfied with where he is. He feels there is still a long way to go.