The Beautiful Game’s not-so-beautiful Saboteurs

Beautiful game hockey is perhaps the last surviving of amateur sports. It’s an oasis successfully sustaining its water front, resultant radiance of coolness, against soaring heats and shifting sands, thy name being professionalism.

You hold the stick, not raising, but low. You don’t stand erected but crouched. You hit the ball hard, very hard indeed, but you are taught how that ball not to hit the other players not necessarily of your team alone. Hockey, by it nature and intent, lets one assimilate such virtues as humility, simplicity and respectability, all in one go.

If one plays hockey, it is expected that his human virtues, ethos of societal living and outlook to humankind, stand apart. The complete hockey player is supposed to be a complete human being, not just in his or her playing spells, but throughout their life span.

Dhyan Chand, by far the greatest hockey player the world has ever produced, stood out not only for his playing prowess, but equally for his humane nature, too. If some hockey players do not turn out to be so good a human being, and if the sport has not made them to be so, it is not the fault of the sport. Think of how that human being would have shaped had he not taken up such mellowing sport as hockey!

Playing sports without grasping the inherent virtues and values it aims to inculcate, is mechanical, not fit for human activity. Sadly today, focus of sport has been diverted from these noble intends. Driven by commercialism and patriotism (that’s why governments pump millions of monies to organize mega sport events and train virtually babes and youngsters), the simple perceived objective of sports is to win medals.

So, it is made out that medals are the cornerstone of sporting concepts; sole bedrock on which all sporting castles per se are raised. Let me put it other way.

If a Class V student in Section A plays hockey, his Physical Education Teacher motivates his team to defeat section B. It’s good because, one team has to win why can’t it be yours. Now, having formed their hockey team, the school head wants his school defeat another school. This is also fun, trying to win another school amidst thousands of hands supporting you – or against you.

Somewhere here someone here and there is pressed for hard winning. It could be anyone, the reasons could be anything. Unable to do it in ethical way, the cruel mind on one day devises a way to come out of the pressing situation. He knowingly plays senior class student in the lower class competition. The physical stronger boys give him instant medal. If in some case it hasn’t, the mastermind finds another outlet to hide his disappointment: finger at the officiating umpires of bias.

The seeds of dishonesty are sown. The spirit of sport has gone.

Medal crazy perception wins the day. Either you win the medal, or win the hearts of losers by sidelining the actual reasons of defeat to umpire bashing.
Small things, but big mistakes.

If you look at the contemporary Indian hockey scene, you can relate all the ills it suffers from can be bracketed into these two gray areas – age problem and umpire bash.

Both have given India an irrevocable bad name all over the world. If we are not winning nowadays as much as we would have like to, or as much as we are capable of, the factors behind such dismal picture are not far to seek. It is there for everyone to see.

It is fashionable to conclude, say, the beautiful game is managed by ugly people, blah .. blah. But if you have an eye, and if you are serious about knowing the truth, things are there before our eyes.

Its basic lack of honesty that has done us enormous harm. This dishonesty, which owes it seeds to medal hunt frenzy at lower levels, then spread to job market, has grown to a monstrous proportion.

By being dishonest, we did dishonour the great sport that gave us honour even in our colonial days.

If we play hockey in the spirit of the game, and for fun — and leave about 20 of them in hunting for medals at top level — if we develop playing a culture, then the world’s biggest open air game, the last surviving amateur sport can continue to flourish and make every one of us a better human being. The choice is ours

Note: This article of mine was carried out in the Nehru Hockey Souvenir published early in the year.