The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Alas, a thing of joy won’t be forever!

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Alas, a thing of joy won’t be forever!

Indian hockey’s slide has been without arrest laments Rohit Brijnath

Hockey is in my DNA, it’s part of my code, as it is with millions from India. Its sound will never exit my brain, especially the click of sticks like knitting needles as we once bullied furiously for the ball, and the crack of ball colliding with the wood of goal. Of the many rites of passage as a boy, buying a hockey stick was one, flexing it, poking it with a compass, rubbing on oil, looking at it resting in the lonely corner of your room.

Hockey had its own special pain, of the cork ball hitting unprotected shin in cold winter. It had its own way in which teams were made at lunch break at school, which involved a kid sitting on the ground, his eyes covered and picking sticks from a pile and throwing one to each side.

It had its own fear, like the sliver that pierced your insides when you ran out for a penalty corner, or as we called it then, a short corner. It had its endless joy, the first time you slid a ball through someone’s legs, or dribbled down the wing, all the time thinking your name was Zafar Iqbal.

Very special

This game was special, more so than cricket, football, chess, kabaddi, because this was India’s game. And this everyone knew. It’s why in Vienna there is a statue of Dhyan Chand. It’s why in Los Angeles, when India’s team arrived there in 1932, a headline blared:

Hockey Kings Arrive Today

They Will Be Accompanied By Their Many Wives

There are 2 Lions In The Team

It is why while attending an Olympics, a reference to India and hockey was inescapable. "You won how many golds?", strangers would ask, and I’d preen like a boy on a first date. In 1996, Sports Illustrated, America’s premier sports magazine, even sent a writer down to investigate this strange sport they knew as field hockey and the grand legacy of the masterful Indians.

By then standards had dived, but there was no glee attached to India’s fall, and even at Sydney 2000, foreigners would tell you, hockey needs India. But, however inconsistent India was, at least India was there at the Games, at least there were players, moments, matches to complain about. At least there was hope. Now all this has been stolen.

For a while, nations take ownership of a sport. Brazil is freakish in its almost constant presence at football’s peak. Kenya was a synonym for distance running. No conversation is possible on rugby without mention of the All Blacks. Of course, teams dip, and rise, for such is sport. But Indian hockey is almost unique, it has walked off a cliff in slow motion, it is a slide without arrest.

Forgetting tradition

Did officials forget how deep this game went, how strong its history was, how powerful their responsibility was? Either way, it has taken a series of staggering decisions, like a coach reportedly refusing assistance from Ric Charlesworth at the qualifiers, to fall so far. Even in mediocrity, Indian hockey has lacked humility.

The worst thing possible has happened to Indian hockey, there is the suggestion that the emotional connection with the game has slipped, that the sporting umbilical chord between nation and national sport is being severed. When athletic heroes are pasted on Indian walls, how many are hockey players?

One day, after repairing and planning, after sound business decisions by astute administrators, India will be great again. But, perhaps, something precious has been lost forever, and a vocabulary almost extinguished. Perhaps, there will be a generation in the future that will think Vampire is only a bat, that the reverse flick is some Twenty 20 cricketing stroke, and that Claudius was just a Roman emperor.

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