A Conversation With: Basketball Player and Coach Divya Singh Divya Singh, 30, was a forward for India's national women's basketball team from 2002 to 2008 and the captain of India's senior women's team at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006. Ms. Singh is currently the coach for India's under-16 boys' team and the assistant coach for the senior women's basketball team. The sport runs in her family: Her four sisters are all basketball players, three of whom currently play for the national basketball team, and her eldest sister is also a coach. India Ink spoke to Ms. Singh about the recent controversy surrounding the selection of the tennis player Sania Mirza's partner in the Olympics mixed doubles event. Ms. Mirza said in an open letter Tuesday evening that India's tennis authority is unfairly using the promise of playing with her in the Olympics to manipulate a male player into competing. Ms. Mirza called the Indian sports authority's tactics a "blatant humiliation of Indian womanhood." What is your reaction to Sania Mirza's assertion that authorities are using her as "bait" to lure her fellow male sportsman, which she says reeks "of male chauvinism"? I fully support Sania's statement. Indian sportswomen do not have it easy in our society. It is Indian culture -- we are very conservative about girls. My sisters and I have managed to get into basketball, thanks to our mother. We always talk about how it is not easy for sportswomen. We have to deal with society and still not get what you deserve. We have less job opportunities than men. What was your experience when you got into the field of basketball? When we started playing at a very young age, people used to ask my mother, "Why are you sending your girls out?" The other girls we used to play with would go back to cook and go to school. The guys who played with us would go back, relax and do nothing; they would not go to school. The girls would play and go to school and do well also. But after sometime they would leave the game. Somebody's brother will say, "My sister is not going to play wearing shorts," or "we cannot let her play with all these boys." Though my mother did not say anything, we used to get comments from the boys - "Look at her trying to play; she wants to become a star." It was very humiliating. My mother is from a very open-minded family. She is from a village, but she has stayed outside her village almost all her life. My father used to stop us. He would ask us to go study, saying, "There is no future in this." He did not like us playing at all. Only when I became a national player and started playing for India, he was proud of me. I would be wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts. My friends would wear long pants, not shorts, and would ask me why do I wear shorts? Those girls got married by the time they were 21 years old. If they had not, I am sure they could have become very good players. We have had a mixed experience, but at the end of the day only 30 to 40 percent of people support you. Have the sports authorities and your coaches been supportive of your ambitions as a player? My coaches were very supportive. They did not differentiate between girls and boys. Harish Sharma, former secretary general of the Basketball Federation of India was a very modern man. He became secretary in 2000 and changed the face of the game in India. Before him, the secretary was very firm; he did not like boys and girls mingling. Trying to contact him was like trying to contact the Prime Minister. We never had a problem with the national federation under Mr. Sharma, but there were always complaints from local governing bodies of basketball. The girls had to leave the courts early, being told that they are girls, they should go home. It is nothing very big, but it was discrimination. There were also incidents of favoritism within the girls' team. The boys' team got much more exposure. It was disappointing; they were getting more opportunities to go abroad for tournaments. There is no reason for this, and in India no one will give you answers. Have things changed since the time you started to play professionally? My father says even now, where will I find a groom? Believe me, people always say, girls who play sports are not good to marry or settle down with. It is the universal truth in India. Girls who play sports are considered to be of bad character. I think in 10 years there is more common sense in people now. Look at Sania -- she is celebrity; people talk about her like she is Priyanka Chopra [a Bollywood actress]. Saina Nehwal [a badminton player] is looked up to with respect. I personally don't even know the name of India's women cricket players -- that is the biggest discrimination. Why are women not recognized? Not getting paid as much or even a little less than men? We are not even in the scene. Women are not recognized; they are not in the mainstream. What is it like now that you are a coach? Coaching boys is tougher than girls. To discipline boys is very hard -- you scold the first and you end up scolding the third, the fifth and the seventh person. With girls you scold one, and all of them fall in line. I think I was the first one to coach a boys' team. When we went abroad for tournaments with the team, other coaches would be agape - "Where did the lady coach come from?" They thought I was the physiotherapist! My head coach was a man; all of the others were. Very frankly, I can never be the coach of the senior men's team. I don't think I will ever coach a national men's team, junior or senior. It would be hard for me as a woman to coach them.