MY STORY: ALL PAIN, NO GAIN, BUT CHARLES EVER READY FOR A LAUGH

ERROL D’CRUZ

Excruciating pain, a partial handicap and a lack of recognition hasn’t dimmed goalkeeping legend Charles Cornelius’ joy for life. Chatting with the star of yesteryear strengthens your belief that humour is the best medicine. Charles’ hockey career has been fraught with anguish but his raconteur is laced with anecdotes that leave you in splits.

A knee injury and a botched surgery ended Charles’ career and rendered him a near cripple. Off the pitch, he’s failed to reap rewards far lesser players have. And that, after putting life and limb on the line while donning his country’s colours.

For all that, Charles, World Cupper and Olympian, is still his jolly self at 76. Ready to joke and laugh heartily while going down memory lane. For instance, when asked a common question about goalkeeping in the days of yore devoid of protective gear of today, he replies: “We had faith in God’s grace and abdominal pads!” Amid a shrill guffaw, of course.

Charles endured 20 fractures, seven on his nose, during his career. He was at the peak of his prowess when a knee injury, fully treatable, flared up from medical negligence and raised the spectre of amputation. The injury occurred at a training camp for the 1974 Tehran Asian Games. As a consequence of his ill-fated left leg, Charles’ height reduced from 5’ 8” to 5’ 6.5” and he limps from the affected leg being shorter than the other – the effect of a series of six surgeries to alleviate the ills caused by an unsterilized needle during the first surgery.

“A doctor at the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala, tried to treat the injury with hydrocortisone injections but it went horribly wrong,” Charles recollects. It came to light that the needle was infected and Charles underwent six surgeries — the final one in London that saved his leg from amputation but lost him a knee cap. The Indira Gandhi government gave Charles’ case attention but a change of regime in 1977 left his fate in limbo.

“Thanks to my predicament given publicity by senior journalists R Sriman and K Datta of The Times of India, Prem Kumar, proprietor of Pankaza Garments, came forward with financial assistance. Air India responded as well and offered me free travel. In the end, my leg was saved,” Charles recollects.

But he still had challenges to cope with. “I had to drag myself, limp, often stumbling and falling at malls and other public places,” Charles recounts. It all led to a spinal condition that led to the reduced blood supply to both legs, warranting surgery performed in 2017 in Mumbai that cost him Rs 4 lac.

Charles’ father was in the army and the family moved from Chennai to Firozepur in Punjab when he was six. That explains his fluent and colourful Punjabi that matches his mother tongue Tamil.

“My father (Devaraj) was a natural sportsman and played football, cricket, volleyball, kabaddi, was a good athlete and, of course, played hockey as well. My mother (Ida) participated in schools sports and my two brothers and sister were also influenced to do so.

When little Charles stepped into the sports field at MB School, Pathankot, which he attended, he considered athletics and hockey. “My PT master Kashmiri Lal advised me to watch good hockey players and there were plenty of them around,” he remembers. Charles then picked up the stick and did what he did best – play as an outfield player, not a goalkeeper, mind you. “I played as right-half, combining with the right-winger and centre-forward. When I got the chance, I scored myself.

“I was a hero in school and college. It was difficult to stop me,” Charles recalls. “I scored a lot of goals but it was tough going. The defenders were rough and ready and their motto was ‘ball jayega, ya banda jayega!’ (Either get the ball or the player!).

“I often was slapped by my PT master who didn’t take kindly to defenders dispossessing me. In time, I picked up the nuances and I became a terror to defences,” Charles reveals.

After finishing school, he was advised to join DAV College, the famous institute that nurtured sportspersons. Hockey-wise, it were Balbir Singh, Udham Singh and Resham Singh, to name just three who graduated from DAV, considered one of the best colleges in Punjab.

But joining the famed institution appeared ludicrous. “My father was just a Subedar. How could he afford to send me to DAV, I thought and expressed my doubts to Mr Lal,” Charles recounts.

His fears were found to be misplaced. The college would bear all major expenses. “Aana free, khana free, rehana free…aur kya chahiye?’(free travel, free meals, free stay… what more could I ask)”, a chuckling Charles recalls saying to himself. In later years, he read at a Railway station in Bihar during one of his hockey trips, “Aana free, jaana free, pakade gae tho khana free!”. “That was a little different, though,” he said, chuckling away to glory.

The college rivalled Sports College, another hub of talent, and Charles thrived on the competitive environment the institutions generated. He continued terrorizing defences at the collegiate and Varsities level and word went around that the South Indian lad’s speed and guile came from his diet.

“Madras ka hai woh ladka. Machi khata hai, isi liye woh itna tej khiladi hai (that South Indian lad is such a fast player because he eats fish,” was the common belief in the college circuit. But Charles refuted that notion. “I told everyone that quickness came from my fear of muscular full-backs like Mukhbain Singh (soon to be a celebrated India defender) and the best way to avoid a tackle from him was to take the ball and run away at speed!”

Upon graduating, Charles needed to plan the next step when it came to his playing career and livelihood. Punjab Police, a leading hockey unit, not just in the state but country-wide, were on the ball when it came to recruiting the best talent.

Word of Charles’ prowess spread far and wide. So much so that Ashwini Kumar, DIG, Punjab Police, and president of the erstwhile Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) barked out orders to his scouts: “Woh Madrasi ladka ko pakad ke le aao!”(Get hold of that South Indian lad and bring him here). At least, these were the words Charles assumes he used.

Charles was duly inducted into a team that had legends such as Prithipal Singh, Udham Singh, Dharam Singh, Madan Mohan and Charanjit Singh. With talent abounding in the fabled nursery of Sansarpur and the presence of other formidable outfits such as Border Security Force and Army units including Corps of Signals and Army Supply Corps, there was no dearth of talent in the state.

But what Punjab Police lacked was a goalkeeping mainstay. “I was put in goal,” Charles flashed back. “I wasn’t a born goalkeeper and was reluctant. Udham Singh, the four-time Olympian, pleaded with me to do it for his sake, promising that I will one day play in the Olympics. I couldn’t refuse and so donned the pads.”

That was that and a piece of history was made.

Charles’ sporting genes, talent, courage and determination made him an instant hit in his new avatar. He rose to don the country’s colours in 1966 when India played France in a test series. But along the way, he turned in many a memorable performance for Punjab in the National championship.

None more than in the 1970 final against Bombay in Bangalore which went to the shootout even after two replays that couldn’t break the stalemate. “We had missed our first two penalty strokes and were down 0-2. To make the contest even spicier, my opposite number was my India teammate Cedric Pereira.

“I assured my Punjab team that everything would be OK but they still headed to the dressing room, resigned to defeat. Well, I saved the next three strokes. We converted ours and won. I won’t forget the jubilation of my teammates who rushed back onto the pitch and chaired me,” Charles fondly reminisces.

“Charlie theri balle, balle. Chak de phatte! (Hurray for Charlie. Let’s go!), the cheers still resound in my ears,” says Charles.

“It wasn’t easy for a South Indian lad to find a place in the team,” he opines. “But I was proud and happy to play for Punjab. I was loved and respected by all – including the famous Olympians who wore the state’s colours,” Charles reveals emotionally.

Charles acquitted himself creditably at the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games where India won the silver medal as well as the 1971 Barcelona World Cup and the 1972 Munich Olympics where the team won bronze.

But memories of the 1973 World Cup in Amsterdam are deeply etched in the memory of fans across the country who viewed the recordings of the semi-final and final against Pakistan and The Netherlands respectively on Doordarshan.

The semi-final, however, was fraught with pre-match anxiety.

“You see,” Charles explains, “We were to play Pakistan on Friday – a day which had a psychological effect on our players when it came to playing our arch-rivals. I turned to the pastor at a church in Amsterdam and told him of our ‘Shukrawar scares’. Members of the team were with me. We all lit candles after which he said to all of us ‘God bless you. You will win.’ And, as you know, we won 1-0 and reached the final,” Charles recollects, joy in his voice.

Sadly, India lost the final to The Netherlands in the tie-breaker after surrendering a 2-0 lead built within just nine minutes of the game. After the Dutch reduced the margin, they applied relentless pressure before half-time to equalize and that’s when Charles stood tall.

The photograph of a save after rushing out to foil Dutch superstar Ties Kruize won an award. Another save during the tie-breaker was nothing short of spectacular but went in vain as The Netherlands eventually won 4-2.

“It was very disappointing to lose after taking a two-goal lead and wasting a penalty stroke in sudden-death extra time,” Charles recalled. “But I looked forward to the next World Cup in 1975 where I was in line for captaincy,” Charles, who was included in a World XI in 1973, reveals.

Fate, however, deemed otherwise. Came the knee injury followed by the tragedy and trauma of surgery and Charles waved goodbye to his career. He was then shown the door by his employers Border Security Force, Jalandhar, and was compelled to seek a livelihood in sports administration at the NIS – a far cry from action in goal where he thrived.

And then, there was more than physical pain.

“I hailed from Tamil Nadu but shone in Punjab. So when it came to reward and recognition, each state left it to the other. As a result, I did not receive a reward for international achievement from either state,” Charles says, trying in vain to hide the pain. “Players from Tamil Nadu and Punjab were rewarded with houses and plots of land but I got nothing,” he says. “I remember S. Thyagarajan (a legendary journalist) writing in The Hindu, ‘If you ask me, both Punjab and Tamil Nadu should reward Charles Cornelius.”

Charles’ counsel was sought by the erstwhile IHF and Sports Authority of India and he helped develop a long list of goalkeepers for the country – Romeo James, Neel Kamal, Aashish Balal, Subbaiah and Aloysius Edwards are but a few of them.

But the much cherished Arjuna Award failed to arrive nor has the Lifetime Award that Charles so eminently deserves.

Married to Violet, he lives in Chennai and has a daughter Suchitra settled in Australia and son Aaron, a theologian.

Charles, for most of his life, has lived with, even embraced, pain. He lost a playing career to a quirk but hasn’t lost hope that one day his contribution and sacrifice for the country will draw the recognition and reward it deserves. Something he waits for patiently with humour and laughter as teammates.

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