It's the same old story - we only repeat it, and retell it, ad nauseam. One more Olympics, one more occasion to settle down with the dregs, ponder over the big ifs, and indulge in more bouts of self-flagellation. And lording it over this desolation, a callous babucracy, which doesn't necessarily know the difference between hockey and gulli danda.
Start at the other end, bottom up. Take the Bariyatu Hockey Centre in Ranchi. Probably the only one in the country for training women players - and it boasts of producing names like Savitri Purti, Helen Soy, Sumrai Tete, Dayamani Soy, Biswasi Purti, Alama Guriya and Kanti Baa, all of whom have represented the national team - the centre is today waging a losing battle to keep itself afloat. When it was launched in 1976 by the Bihar Government, it was a story of optimism and promise. Today, it stands eerie testimony to all that is wrong with Indian sports.
Two months ago, the authorities had to close down the centre for two weeks and ask the trainees to vacate their hostels if they could not bear their own expenses. Out of a total of 25 trainee girls, 20 were forced to leave for their homes. The rest were luckily accommodated by the Sports Authority of India (sai) coach, Narendra Singh Saini, who agreed to pay for them "keeping their talent in mind".
With their self-bought sticks, boots, jerseys and hopes and dreams, the budding stars of Indian hockey were forced to go back to their villages in deep forests and the surrounding mountains of Chhotanagpur plateau. "We were told to either meet the expenses or make our own arrangement. What could we do? We left everything behind to work as daily wage labourers in the fields," says Reshma Minjur, who left the centre with two other friends.
Tall and athletic, Reshma was one of the promising players of the centre. She now practices in Hesel, a village under the Khunti sub-division, with her friends, Gangi and Rashmi Mundu. sai athletic coach S.K. Dixit, who trains the girls in Saini's absence, told Outlook: "Reshma has the talent to play for the country. She's got a perfect body and the speed required to be there. But see how malnourished she is. It is a shame that the state cannot provide even the basic facilities for such promising players. I can only give her training. It's definitely a loss for the country." Dixit alleges that everyone in the official hierarchy is busy minting money.
Called the Krida Balika Vikas Kendra (hockey), the girls were accommodated in the half-a-dozen hostel rooms of the Bariyatu Government Girls High School complex, where they also attended regular classes. But sadly, the Rs 350 per month which the government had earmarked initially for the selected girls (which was eventually raised to Rs 600 in 1998) never came on time and successive principals of the school had to at times pay up from their own coffers. Says Sinha, a former principal of the school: "We have been running the centre with great difficulty. Often the money due to the girls never reached them and it lapsed at the end of the financial year." Laments Dixit: "The problems of the centre is purely because of corrupt state government employees." And as usual the government does not want to be held accountable for its failings. Says Ashok Kumar Singh, the state's minister for art, culture and youth affairs: "These are baseless allegations. We have been regularly sending the money for the girls and the state government is doing its best to improve the lot of the players in the centre."
If continuing in the centre is itself a struggle, one can well imagine the basic living condition of the girls there. The training starts everyday at 5 am and after a three-hour rigorous workout, they are served two slices of bread with a cup of tea as breakfast before they go to school. After a bowl of rice and dal in the afternoon, the next training session starts at three. In the night, the girls are served two chappatis with dal as dinner. Forget sports medicine, most of the girls haven't even heard of vitamin tablets in their life. Quiz Sumitra Kumari, the captain of the team, and she'd stare back at you: "Isko khane se kya hota hai (what happens after eating it)?" And their physical fitness? "Yes we often feel weak while training. Sometimes we collapse on the ground, but who cares? We stand up after sometime on our own and start playing again," says Sushma Horo, another trainee in the centre. Adds Mukti Tirkey, her friend: "During rains we pass the whole night huddled together in a corner of the room. There is no other option because the roofs of our hostels leak. There is just one tap for drinking water in the entire hostel. Even the single toilet given to us is never cleaned and it stinks like anything. And then, the mosquitoes. But there is no one to take care of all these things for us." Surprisingly, the centre, with its illustrious track record of producing quality players, does not even have a full-time coach for the girls.
All this in spite of the fact that hockey is as popular in the Chhotanagpur region as soccer is in West Bengal. Little girls playing impromptu hockey with bamboo sticks and kendu balls are a common sight in remote forest villages like Khunti and Simdega. And, surprisingly, thousands throng makeshift stadiums every Sunday to watch local matches popularly called "khashi-murga tournaments". And guess what are the prizes - a khashi (goat) for the winners and a murga (chicken) for the loser. Says Dasrath Mahto, a teacher at the local Pelalul school in Khunti, who has sent a number of girls to the Bariyatu centre for training: "The whole Khunti-Simdega region is full of talented hockey players and the only requirement is to tap their talent properly at the proper time". But that never happens and sadly, genuine talent goes unnoticed.
And there is a sad story everywhere. Take Karuna Purti's, for instance. A passout from the centre, Purti was talented enough to play for the state, Air India, NE Railways and Bihar Police. But, now she sells jungle wood in Khunti for her living because she was never retained in any of the teams for reasons unknown to her. Says Biswasi Purti, who represented India in the 1986 Asiad and was lucky enough to be employed by the Railways: "Like Karuna there are so many others for whom life is yet another liability to live on. It is the state government's responsibility to look after its players. How can we forget that this is the state where the great hockey wizard Gopal Bhengra had been cutting stones in mines until he was spotted by the media."
Bhengra, however, is not an exception in a country which does not know how to take care of its greats. Hockey, in the meantime, is dying a slow death in the Chhotanagpur jungles, the cradle itself doubling as a grave.
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