Return to Delhi after three weeks of of NGO work

After the Delhi Commonwealth Games – an event I enjoyed the most — I took sabbatical from journalism for almost a month. I spent the time on my NGO, One Thousand Hockey Legs.

It was a fulfilling effort, time worth spent.

In my fairly long association with hockey journalism, it’s for the first time I did not follow or cover a tournament as was the case with the Asian Games now. However, it must me mentioned here my support staff did their bit to run the site as much effective as they can, including Live Text Commentary of all important India-Pak match.

This Asiad again proved to be a storm in the Cup, as every other edition before did barring 1966 and 1998. Therefore I feel I did not miss anything epochal.

On my work in the last 3 or 4 weeks include printing of three publications

Firstly, a 4-colour pamphlet entitled ‘CWG 2010 Silver Medalists Indian team’. This is almost a poster with all the 16 players of CWG, with a brief of their position and place of work. It can be folded eight fold and kept in pocket for ready reference.

Second was a booklet entitled ‘Present Day Hockey Players’. It gives brief write up of and photo of about 24 present hockey team members.

Third publication was a similar booklet entitled ‘The ABC of Hockey’, which is a miniature version of previously published work on the same title.

All these three publications were done with an aim to educate hundreds of school children with an informative and spectacle-worth content.

One big casualty of this work is missing out Nehru Hockey Tournament.

Then in Chennai and Puducherry, cities about 2000 kms away from Delhi, I interacted with principals and Physical Education Faculties of about 12 schools to organize and be part of three events.

Firstly, a ‘Feel Turf Event ‘ in Chennai in which all three schools subscribed to One Thousand Hockey Legs gathered and for the first time had an opportunity to play on the synthetic turf (Mayor Radhakrishanan Hockey Stadium). The beneficiaries were about 50 school children. Three matches were also held.

Then after a week, the semifinal of the Puducherry OTHL School Legue was to take place, but had to be cancelled due to heavy rains.

Thirdly, a Puducherry OTHL Team was selected (30 boys) and with due permission from School and Parents, this team was taken to Chennai under what we call ‘Chennai-Puducherry Exchange Series’. It is first time, of course, for almost 90 percent of the Puducherry boys to visit ‘distant’ Chennai. In all four matches were played in three days.

During the matches, the Head Masters were requested to release students to watch the match, which almost two of them did, with an effect matches were witnessed by 300 to 400 boys. The results and photos of these action can be accessed at http:othl.stick2hockey.com or www.one thousand hockey legs. Com

A city’s combined school team visiting another city is not epochal or path breaking, but I know my heart and hearts it is not just another event. I and my band of volunteers worked hard, able to introduce hockey in the schools where it was not there before, and something developed into concrete out of our effort is a strong feeling. Its after all we provided sticks, shin guards to all these boys, paid part time coaches on monthly basis, and bore all the expenses of travel and boarding of the tour.

One salient aspect of the whole thing is that we could gather a couple of more volunteers, I thank the Chennai press for the publicity and for this development. Getting more volunteers is a heartening development.

An hour before I left for the station to return to Delhi, a hockey fan of me called to tell that the Selectors have rejected Brasa’s continuance.

Almost I was reminded of another world, which I cherished for long. I will be back into the hurly burly of Delhi hockey shortly, where both the factions of hockey administration and Ministry and SAI are located.

Am back, after a great time spent, being part of my NGO which is growing at a desired pace.