India, my homeland was hauling this curse
for the last long one year. Heartfelt thanks to our next door heroes, in the
end, after the long days of stress and strife, after all those emotional hassles;
our precious gem, master blaster Sachin
Tendulkar put a full stop on world’s strenuous century battle. Now you can
sit, relax and watch the game, you can read next day’s newspaper; you can go
back to your work and talk about the game to your fellows. The 100th
100 curse was over. I wonder, now what on earth makes the leading news on our adored
puffed up game. Yes, we got this youngest, tough, middle finger up warrior, Kohli! He will be the tomorrow’s
news.
Talking about cricket, I have no
right to lift up my words against it because I’m an Indian and according to me
it’s my national sports. Once we were ruled by British and its one of the scars
they left for us. The story is straightforward.
They (British) came here with guns and bombs; they stole stuffs from us,
killed our people, raped our women, destroyed our culture and played cricket
here. Then the feeble super hero of all the time, father of my nation, Gandhi,
came back from South Africa after finishing his studies. He left his career for
us, he left his cloths for us but nothing happened. But when he left his food for us, British
faced the real dilemma. The entire nation stood behind a man with an empty
stomach. British were forced to disappear, so they divided our land and left a
cricket bat in the border. That’s it; the spirit of cricket was born. Now
cricket is the enormous redemptive power of sports in India. It breaks barriers;
it cures the damage and forges pride in almost every Indian hearts. Each and
every corner of India is now carrying the essence of cricket. We got a God, numbered
36,001, from cricket; a god who hates to give taxes. Cricket defines Indian
sports now, it’s everywhere. The passion;
the tension; the elation of Indian people. We are the champions now; one year
back the entire nation was screamed blue. Now, more than just a game, cricket
is religion and culture here; a culture which spreads the dirty fragrance of
British colonization.
But what if we refer a General Knowledge
book or Wikipedia page about India, it’s something else written out there as
our national sports, something named Hockey. How did that happen in a country
where people are frantic about cricket?
How!! Our national game is underrated or it’s faded? Still they are
playing well but why it’s not coming to the main stream news? (Yeah, I know
it’s there at that corner, I read newspapers sometimes.) When we compare our
national game with the so called emotional game, can u imagine the importance
of Hockey? It’s there at the foot and that’s the ugliest truth. To the media,
why is it Important to make Hockey as the Headline news when more than half of
the nation is not even interested in it? We can’t blame media, they need a
market to sell news. How Hockey did become the national game of India? A
question will soon arise. Maybe in the future another question will arise like,
what is this Hockey thing? We need to go back to the past, to the black and
white era to find out that story about Hockey.
Why India celebrating August 29 as national sports
day? If you ask it to the man called
Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer will take his
hats off and say this name, Major Dhyan Chand because he was
there in that special VIP box, watching his Germans hopelessly overrun in the
Gold medal match by an Indian team. It was 1936 Berlin Olympics Hockey final
and India washed out the game with a stunning 8-1 win. The poor hosts can at
least proud about something; they scored the first goal against the unbeaten
Indian team in that Olympics. It was a big team effort and the man behind the
game was no one else but the Lizard of Hockey, Dhyan Chand. At that time
Olympics was the loftiest stage for athletic performances and Chand utilized
that stage to the full extend. He was a humble
soldier from Jhansi, he played the magic
with a Hockey stick, that’s why in Honor Vienna made his statue with 4 hands
and 4 hockey sticks. The story of 1932 Los Angeles Olympics final was even
worst, India scored 24 goals against the hosts of which Chands contribution was
9. Before that India crowned 1928 Amsterdam Olympics too, and the man behind
these three Olympics was no one else but Chand.
After watching that astonishing game from
Chand, Hitler offered him a German citizenship and Conoel position in German
Army, but he obliviously refused it with a smiling face. He was not born with a
hockey stick in his hand, he first played Hockey after joining the Army but
after that it was an inexorable run. In
1948 when he played his last International match, he already scored more than 400
international goals in Hockey. No wonder
why India celebrating sports day on his Birthday. He is a real gem beyond
compare and controversy. I don’t think
he is underrated, but just like all other heroes he himself faded to the
past. It was not a fault, it’s hard to
remember all those warriors in a country like India but without him the story
of our national game will not be complete.
Why is it important to bring him into the
main stream news? Giving him a Bharat Ratna in honor and let his spirit rest in
peace somewhere at the corner of this nation is not the good idea to follow. A
Bharat Ratna award is not that important point here. He deserves it but
promoting the national game is the best way of respect that we can give him
now. London Olympics is here; together we can pray for our team to repeat the
history. Our team needs our support, encourage them and trust them. Don’t let
the stick to fade. It’s our national game and it has a story to tell; the story
of the Lizard.
