Who Is Poulami Adhikari? Former Footballer Turned Food Delivery Agent

A video of Poulami Adhikari, a former member of India's U-16 women's football team working as a food delivery agent has gone viral on social media.

The footballer took part in the women's junior national under-16 team in the 2013 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifier in Sri Lanka. Adhikari also represented the nation in the 2016 Homeless World Cup at Glasgow, Scotland.

A Twitter user named Sanjukta Choudhury posted the now-viral video on her social media and wrote in the caption, "She is Poulami Adhikari a football player who has represented India at the international level. Today she has to support her family as an online food delivery person."

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Who Is Poulami Adhikari?

• Poulami Adhikari, the football player turned food delivery agent is a resident of the Behala region of Kolkata.
• In the now-viral video, Adhikari speaks about how she lost her mother at a young age and how she is the only earning member of the family. At the end of the video, viewers can see Adhikari juggling the football with her feet, proving that she retained her impeccable football skills.
• Adhikari is a third-year BA student at Charuchandra College and works as a food delivery agent to help support her family.
• Despite playing football at international and national levels, Adhikari had to put her dreams on hold due to extreme poverty and ligament and cartilage injuries.
• The 24-year-old works a 12-hour shift and still makes time to practice football for two hours each day. Adhikari works a double shift from 10 am to 2:30 pm and then from 6 pm to 1 am.
• Adhikari began working as a food delivery agent during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• She said, "Being a girl and a cycle user, I usually get short-distance assignments, through which I can earn an average of Rs 20 to 30 per delivery."
• Adhikari added she was initially frightened to work late at night, but thankfully she did "never faced anything untoward in the road".