Time for a drag flick to spare hockey the blues
KARO CHRISTINE KUMAR
A still from Chak De! India, which had briefly sparked interest in the national sport in 2007
Sometime hockey player Shah Rukh Khan may have chosen to invest in Sourav Ganguly rather than Sandeep Singh but there are a few who still put their money where their heart is: in the national game.
Calcutta-based businessman H.M. Bangur for one. His Shree Cement had bailed out the cash-strapped Indian Hockey Association with a Rs 30-lakh sponsorship a day before the World Cup got underway in New Delhi on February 28 and it has just made a “long-term commitment” to the players.
“I am doing this for national pride,” said the low-profile businessman, seated in his Strand Road office.
Like many of the other sponsors who came forward after hearing about the national team going on strike over unpaid salaries, Bangur’s decision was spontaneous.
“We initially offered to fill the gap in the association’s salary bill. But with that dispute being sorted out, we sponsored the hockey sticks used by the team,” he said.
Interactions with the players gave Bangur and his team an insight into the politics at play behind the sorry state of hockey in the country. “The players we spoke to told us that much of the money that the game attracts goes to Hockey India (the governing body of field hockey) while hardly anything reaches them. Each player gets a mere $15 a day during an international tournament. It is sad that instead of spending time honing skills and devising strategies, everyone has to go around looking for funds,” said Bangur.
For a sport like hockey, living deep in the shadows of cricket in India, support has been conspicuous by its absence. Chak De! India had provided a rare spark of interest in hockey in the autumn of 2007 but that too fizzled out once the film faded from the box office and Shah Rukh Khan moved on to become the boss — and also self-proclaimed 12th man — of the Kolkata Knight Riders.
“There is no money for the sport. Even training institutes in Calcutta are fewer compared with Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. So we often bring better trained boys from these states to represent us with the help of some sponsors,” said Melvyn Toppo, a custom official and a keen hockey player.
And to think Calcutta was once a breeding ground of hockey greats. “The main reason for the decline of hockey in Calcutta is the absence of a turf of our own,” stressed Gurbux Singh. “We are only given the Maidan grounds from March 1 till May 15 but how can a player train only in this period? Also during these months we can’t even tap the schoolchildren as it’s examination time,” added the great.
If Bangur has entered the national hockey arena driven by “the promise of a better future”, Singh hopes hockey in Calcutta is poised to turn a corner. “In January 2010, the government has finally given us a four-acre plot inside the Salt Lake football stadium and we are raising funds for the turf. Now we can hope for better times,” said the hockey great.
Bangur, also the chairman of an NGO called The Bengal, has promised to pay $25 per Team India player per day for international tournaments over the next two years, raising the daily allowance from $15 to $40. “We are ready to help raise hockey standards, provided there is no politics involved and the money goes directly to the players.”