HOCKEY lovers in Bangalore woke up to a shock on Wednesday (3rd March 2004) morning. To the news of the passing away of the City’s last of the living Olympic gold-medallists.
The former Indian stalwart who would have turned 78 on March 24, passed away after a brief illness on Wednesday morning and a sentiment of melancholy immediately engulfed the hockey fraternity.
Kannan Krishnamurthy, the secretary of the State Hockey Association, currently accompanying the National team as its manager at the Madrid Olympic qualifiers, was one of the first callers of condolence. A call from Indian Hockey Federation Secretary General K Jothikumaran followed almost immediately terming the death of the legendary forward “as the end of an era.” That these two key officials in the National federation should respond so swiftly, despite their minds pre-occupied with the Indian team’s shocking 1-all draw against Belgium were examples for the way Rajagopal was respected and revered by the hockey community in the country.
Reverence and respect, Rajagopal commanded from anyone associated with hockey not only in India, but also in the international society. Those who had seen him play, and played along side him, would repeat and regale us with tales of the sorcery of stickwork the former Hindustan Aircraft spearhead would unleash on his rivals. Those who had played under him as a coach would vouch for the sharp hockey acumen he exuded. And even those not lucky enough to be associated in either of the aforementioned roles would get a rare insight into the game.
“I don’t think anything is wrong with Indian hockey,” the stalwart told this writer during a conversation for a piece in the inaugural Sporting Passion of the Vijay Times. “Except that we have begun to ape the European approach. We have simply forgotten the art of perfecting our skills,” he had said.
Of course there was no better man in Bangalore, and to a large extent in India, to present a lecture-demonstration on the skills. As a forward, Rajagopal was versatile in terms of playing position. Having started his career as a right-extreme, Rajagopal shifted to playing as a right-inside before settling down into the role of a left-extreme, the position he played in the starting XI when India won the gold at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
A line-up comprising like Balbir Singh (Sr) Udham Singh, Raghubir Lal and Swarup Singh with our own Desamuthu in the goal and led by the irresistible Kunwar Digvijay Singh ‘Babu’, was lent the control and composure only by the presence of Rajagopal. The forwards were all as fierce and fast as they could be, but as Balbir Singh once said: “We couldn’t have got many of the goals (13 in all for India in that edition of the Olympics), but for the presence of Rajagopal.”
At the time of revival of Indo-Pak sporting relations, it must be recalled that Rajagopal was one of the first players who played against a team from across the border. The year 1951 was truly golden, in Bangalore hockey history, with Hindustan Aircraft _ now known as Hindustan Aeronautics _beating Lahore Bata by a solitary goal in the Beighton Cup final. With Rajagopal doing all the spadework, Kothandapani struck the only goal of the match, which proved to be a precursor for many a memorable battle India and Pakistan were to pitch on the hockey turf.
As a coach Rajagopal was endowed with the gift of explaining even the most complicated of drills using the simplest of words.
Says G Parimal Kumar, the current coach of the HAL team: “Rajagopal had a manner of speaking that, when he was pulling us up for a mistake, it would sound like a father correcting his son. “And mind you we used to make a lot mistakes,” says the former star, who was part of the team that won the 1975 Junior Nationals at Pune, under Rajagopal’s training.
An avid believer in the Asian style of positive hockey, Rajagopal always emphasised on perfecting one’s inherent skills. “Who says India can’t play our traditional style and win the Olympic gold. Except that we need to be perfect in whatever we do,” the man known as ‘Raju’ to his friends would retort if anyone ventured to ask him about the changing patterns in the sport.
A man known to speak his heart out, Rajagopal did indeed receive an indifferent deal from the erstwhile National federation. Having been an integral part of the think-tank in the National team’s preparation to the Olympics, Rajagopal was left out in the eleventh hour. And on two occasions at that, the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. But the man who followed “God gives us everything. He has the right to take away anything” philosophy in life would shrug off any attempt to make him speak of those let downs. “It’s like a game of hockey. You can do all the groundwork and still the strikers can make a mess of it all at the goal-mouth,” would be his remark on such occasions.
Not that many forwards could miss a scoring chance craftily creat