A film on colourful but tragic hockey hero
Hockey strikes with mass. The success of women hockey based film Chak De India proved it. Sahni’s brainwork Chak de India is a fiction though it is full of real anecdotes.
Now, almost after 12 years of the path breaking sports genre film, comes a real story based film ‘Prithipal Singh’.
Directed by Babita Puri, acted by Vikas of CID fame, the film narrates the colourful yet tragically ended story of hockey ‘s super hero from Punjab, who played in three Olympics.
Sandeep Misra, an ardent hockey writer has co-scripted the story.
Prithipal Singh is the hockey world’s first Penalty Corner Hero before the era of Paul Litjens.
He played for Punjab University before graduating to play for India. He joined Punjab Police, where he got into trouble with then IHF President Ashwini Kumar before moving to Indian Railways.
Being a post-graduate in agriculture, he joined Punjab Agriculture University (where 2000 Olympics captain Ramandeep Singh also hails from) as deputy director for youth welfare.
He was shot dead in daylight as a result of groupism in the campus. It was in 1983, a hero’s life, who once aspired to become the president of Indian Hockey Federation, was cut short.
Prithipal’s life is full of contradictions and it perhaps moves any story teller, and therefore the film can be expected to thrill the present generation.
Prithipal Singh played and won three Olympic medals: silver (Rome, 1960), gold (Tokyo, 1964) and bronze (Mexico City, 1968).
Trailer of the movie: