"mom, i sold Hockey"

hockey is my country's sport. at least that's what all the General Knowledge books sold in India say.
last night i was more than sad to learn about India not even qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. that was really the last thing that i had ever expected from the Indian Team or the IHF.

hockey was one of the many sports that i enjoyed to the core back in school. my passion grew from the fact that the only game that my Dad had ever played was Hockey. my maternal grandfather played Hockey for West Punjab before the Indian/Pakistani independence. i always felt like it was a family sport. i was the torchbearer.
apart from being hit by Hockey sticks on the field, i have had my good share of tasting the wooden babies off field also. i have always had a rowdy bunch of friends.
though bedridden, but still my grandfather would get upset beyond imagination learning about the great feat. achieved by my nation in his favorite sport.

at this stage i wish to give two hoots to the blame game and just imagine how some very important people would feel about this conquest of ours...

the wizard of hockey.... major dhyan chand
this man is to Hockey what don bradman is to cricket.
his accomplishments are too honorable to be described in a blog. i have no clue where to start from. he got for india the gold medal from the berlin olympics 1936 but his fireworks had begun way before 1936 and ended the day he died sometime in the late 1970s. legend has it that he told his doctor on his deathbed that hockey is dying.
in tokyo they split open his stick to find the hidden magnet. later they got off by stating that it was just some glue on his stick that holds the ball too close.
adolf hitler offered him a job in his army.
in vienna they have his statue outside the olympics statium that has 8 hands.
he died penniless...

mecca of indian hockey... the village of sansarpur
this village has produced 12 hockey olympians.
7 out of these 12 have played in the same olympics too.
i read this morning that for the first time in the year 1968 india did not reach the Finals of the olympics in berlin since 1928 when we had pocketed the gold.
the famous five of the india squad hailed from this village named col. balbir singh, ajit singh, balbeer singh, tarsem singh ad jagjit singh. they were then scared to set foot in their own village of sansarpur. it was a heinous crime committed.
look at us today.... all we want is sponsorship. we want to be like cricket.

the dictator who raped the sport... k.p.s gill (Indian Hockey Federation Chief)
sir, it must have been a tough job to mother this game. of all the field hockey talent that runs in the veins of this country starting the amsterdam olympics' gold 1928, it must have taken a lot of effort on your part to ruin it.
this game got for india 8 olympic gold medals till date, the last one dating 1980.
cricket is nowhere close boss. you raped it all.
it's a disgrace to this country.
oh no.. please do not take this wrong. kps gill is a disgrace to this country. for dhyan chand watches you from above. sansarpur awaits you there. my grandfather thinks that you are a prick. and i don't need to give you a piece of my mind about you.

Indian Hockey... R.I.P