Bratman forever

Call it a curse or simply a mini-series of unfortunate and, at times, dastardly events, the Indian hockey goalkeeper’s uniform has brought more pain than joy for those donning it in recent years. On one hand, while Baljit Singh almost lost his eye in a freak accident while training last year at Balewadi, the national team’s long, but barely, standing first-choice custodian Adrian D’Souza’s career has been riddled with mishaps, the latest injury ruling him out of the Commonwealth Games.
Not surprising then that Bharat Chetri, the lone goalkeeper in the 16-man squad, will be the cynosure of all eyes when the Indian team steps out for battle in Delhi next month. And while the entire nation would want to wrap the 29-year-old, happy-go-lucky, guitar-strumming, Darjeeling-born custodian up in cotton-wool, the national selectors would definitely be having all their digits crossed hoping that their pre-eminent pick remains unscathed during the Games.

But while Chetri has proved adept at being steady in front of goal through his intermittent international career; neither his parents nor the various authority figures have quite managed to pin him down to conformity off the field.

From constantly bothering younger sister Bharti by tugging at her hair as a kid and perennially being summoned by a succession of school and college principals to even being held up for throwing stones at coconut trees at the Bangalore Centre for Excellence as a teenager, Chetri has been Indian hockey’s eternal brat.

“I have been a badmaash all my life. I would never study at home and was always fooling around with my friends. So bothered were my parents (a lenient father, who was a subedar major in the Army and a strict mother) that they put me in boarding school at a very young age in Darjeeling,” says Chetri, before adding that while elder brother Jagat too was notorious for spending more time on football fields than with his books, he somehow — and much to his dismay — always managed to score good grades.

“I used to get into fights with other kids or play pranks on them and invariably, by the time I got back home from school, my victim’s parents would have already landed up to complain about my antics,” he says with a smile.

A devoted football fanatic in his early years, Chetri had begun making a name for himself, playing the local age-group tournaments in his hometown. And it was a case of ‘tough love’ as he calls it that led to his first and significant tryst with hockey, a sport that till then he had little or no knowledge about.

While on a visit, cousin Prem Singh Rana, a hockey coach in Patna, had asked Chetri’s mother to send the 12-year old and his sister along with him to get trained in hockey — an offer that she jumped upon.

“I had just returned home, having coloured my long mane, after spending two days with a friend. And before I knew it, I was forced into the jeep on my way to Patna, much to my chagrin. But my mother and sister convinced me through tears and good-wishes to leave home. Even then I thought, the training would last 7-10 days, little did I know it would go on for 12-14 years,” says Chetri, while adding that the jeep did halt once at a barber-shop, where his locks bit the dust.

Having enjoyed the chilly and pleasant climes of Darjeeling, where he and his friends would often spend evenings accompanied by their guitars atop mountain peaks, Chetri didn’t take too well to the relentless heat of Patna.

“My cousin used to make us run in that heat for hours, while following on a bike. And if we would slack off and walk in between, he would suddenly jump on us and get us back on track. My complexion was seriously affected, and all my friends back home teased me about having become very dark. But my mother was adamant that it had simply improved,” he recalls.

But even the hardcore regime wasn’t enough to snap Chetri’s naughty-streak. Not long after he started living with his cousin, Chetri accidentally ended up getting his neighbour’s tongue cut during a volleyball game, and when Rana would ask him to copy down pages from a newspaper as an alternative for school-work, the teenager would leave out big chunks of paragraphs. And according to Chetri, his mother’s ‘master-plan’ came to fruition, when during a visit she took Bharti back home, and left him to fend for himself. “That’s when I realised that I was probably destined to do something in life through hockey.”

And the rate at which he grew through the ranks at the junior level, gave Chetri the required impetus to follow on his destined track. But ask him about why he ended up becoming a goalkeeper and his explanation is rather symptomatic of the person Chetri is—extremely serious on the field, carefree off it.

“He (Rana) was impressed with the way I could dive and also with the way I blocked my goal. But more importantly, he is this big, strong and strict guy, and the truth is that he asked me to be a goalkeeper and I agreed without any hesitation,” explains Chetri, before laughing out aloud.

Following a stint at the Army Boys Sports Complex, Chetri spent sometime at the Army School in Dhanapur, where he would scoot off in the night, along the banks of the Ganges to watch movies with his friends.The next day would be spent standing outside the principal’s office.

“He used to say, ‘Tu phir aa gaya’ every time before punishing me. I somehow always managed to find like-minded friends wherever I went,” he says.

Chetri’s base over the last decade or so has been in Bangalore though, where he first went for a tournament and attracted the interest of the coaches there. And just like with Patna, Bangalore wasn’t love at first sight either.

“I spent 15 days there, before I ran back to my cousin, who in turn blasted me for not concentrating on the bigger picture, and yet again I was packed off to train in a city I didn’t want to be in,” he says.

Chetri’s efforts bore fruits though, as national colours soon beckoned. He ended up missing his brother’s wedding while playing for the victorious national side at the junior World Cup in 2001. The tournament also helped him secure a job with Canara Bank, much to his parent’s satisfaction.

“My mom probably knew the day my cousin showed up that this was going to be my true calling. And it is great when I go back home now and I am called as chief-guest for functions. They are very proud of me.”

Following the coconut-incident, Chetri reveals that he hasn’t gotten into too much trouble and has matured greatly during his time in Bangalore, which he is happy to call his second home now — and not only because his guitars are custom-built to his satisfaction.

Is there anything about Bangalore that he doesn’t like? The rickshawallahs, he says, before boasting about the Kannada that he has picked up over the years. In the coming weeks though, the whole of India would be hoping that the only thing that he picks up from his next destination — the nation’s capital — is the first-ever gold medal for the men’s hockey team.