Dial his number and the rousing Chak De! India anthem greets you as the caller tune. Does a scion of the first family of Indian hockey need even
this evidence to show he is all about the sport? Unfortunately for Vishal Singh, he bears an unwanted legacy of the 1936 team – anonymity.
Still, the 32-year-old stubbornly holds his ground. Despite having developed a kind of apathy towards sports administration, the grandson of hockey legend Dhyan Chand, Vishal is in no mood to put aside the stick.
Literally So much so, he even has one shrouded in cloth and adorned in a cabinet that has pictures of gods and goddesses for company.
“This is my god, my life,” says the man showing undue obeisance to the curved wooden staff as, moist-eyed, he draws it to his forehead.
“People may find me crazy. In most homes of the locality, you will find people worshipping either Ganesh or Hanuman. For me it is the hockey stick. Lekin mujhe kuchh farak nahi padta (But I couldn’t care less,)” he declares with solemn determination.
“Hockey is all I know. I can’t take up anything else.”
Having run from pillar to post for the last 12 years for some sort of stability that the Rajasthan Sports Council could have offered this former national-level player, the son of Dhyan Chand’s elder son Brijmohan Singh, Vishal is juggling three roles. All of them ad-hoc.
“Today, I’m a coach, a clerk and a peon,” he says, adding. “I have to support a family of six with a monthly remuneration of just Rs 5,375. I have no savings. Yet, I have no clue how long they’ll keep me as coach,” he says of not being on the payroll of the state’s sports council.
While the sheer genius of Dhyan Chand and son Ashok Kumar may have inadvertently helped them tide over India’s crippling sporting bureaucracy, Vishal was caught in its vice-like grip. Ironically, the Rajasthan Sports Council’s dribble started on Dhyan Chand’s birthday on August 29, 1997, when Vishal was offered a job as hockey coach of Baran district.
“It was a temporary job and the contract was to be renewed every three months,” he remembers, holding the council responsible of ruining his career. “I was told that if my coaching yields satisfactory results, I would be confirmed. But nothing has happened for the last 12 years,” he alleges.
Since his appointment as the coach of Baran, Vishal has produced 15 players who have played at the national level. One of his boys was awarded the Rashtriya Bal Khel Puraskar in 2004 – a first for hockey in Rajasthan and girls coached by him were runners-up in the 2001 Nationals. “But none of these feats ever caught the attention of any official in the last 12 years,” he laments.
There is not a single chairperson of the Sports Council that Vishal has not approached over the past decade. “Last year, the chairperson agreed to confirm my job, but the sports minister stopped it at the last moment. He wanted five additional appointments over and above those sanctioned. The chairperson disagreed and in their face-off, I was left waiting again. Even my uncle Ashok Kumar took up my case. But even his repeated requests fell on deaf ears.”
Today, a strange fear psychosis has gripped Vishal. He is unable to concentrate on coaching. “I really don’t know what has happened to me. I have also noticed some changes in my wards who are also very skeptical about their future. I cannot encourage them because I see no light at the end of the tunnel. It is a strange moment of truth,” he says.
But thank god for the hockey.
As a national-level player, Vishal last played in 1991-92. As he looks back, you could sense he betrays regret for pursuing a career in hockey, but immediately corrects himself.
“Being the son of Dhyan Chand’s eldest son was inspiration enough,” he says. But is lineage enough to keep anyone going, especially if the legacy is proving as daunting as Vishal’s? When asked about his four-year old son Vaibhav, who was born on the birth centenary of his great grandfather, Vishal immediately steps in line with family tradition.
“Money or no money, he’ll have to play,” he says with the quiet pride of a congenital loser, adding, “You see, it runs in our blood…”