Margao: A casual dinner table question to her father — why has India never made it to the FIFA World Cup? — has led 14-year-old Nadia Mascarenhas to pen and release her debut song, ‘Oh My India’, a tribute to the game she loves and a rallying cry for a football dream she hopes India will one day fulfil.The Class X student of Sarvodaya Educational Society’s High School, Curchorem, released the song earlier this week, weaving in references to football-loving cities across the country — Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Goa among them — in an attempt to capture a shared national passion for the sport that has, so far, eluded a World Cup berth.“My father told me India has never qualified for the World Cup, and that got me thinking — why not? That’s what pushed me to write this song, to inspire people to do a little more for football,” Nadia said.Balancing board exam pressures with songwriting was no easy task, she admitted. With barely 15 minutes to spare on most days, the teenager took a month to finish the lyrics, followed by several rounds of revisions before recording and filming could begin. “Whatever time my school schedule left me, I used it to write,” she said.Nadia’s tryst with music began at age 10, after she was captivated by a contestant’s performance on a television talent show. What started as practising covers on YouTube and Instagram gradually grew into a serious pursuit, with the teenager now training in both western and Hindustani classical singing.Her parents, Adwin and Meena, have been her biggest cheerleaders through it all. “We’ve always told our three daughters to follow what they’re passionate about, whether it’s academics, sports or singing. When you do what you love, work stops feeling like work,” said Meena. Adwin pointed to his daughter’s discipline as proof of her resolve: waking up before dawn to practise for half an hour daily, in addition to classical singing classes, well before school begins.Nadia has represented her school in the field too, and counts herself an ardent Argentina fan. For her, the message behind ‘Oh My India’ is about taking the right steps for the development of the sport. “The best time to start building our football culture was 20 years ago. The next best time is now,” she said, arguing that sustained encouragement for the sport at the grassroots could eventually open doors to the world stage.Her comment finds resonance in the state of football in India. India are ranked a poor 136th in the world and 26th in Asia. The national team even failed to qualify for the 24-team Asian Cup, the continent’s most prestigious football tournament. Fans believed an expanded FIFA World Cup with 48 teams in North America would enhance India’s chances, but in the qualification campaign, the country won just two of its 12 games, even when paired with lower-ranked nations like Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Singapore.Nadia’s next song, she says, will carry a message of unity and peace.
