Major Dhyanchand would have celebrated his 108th birthday
today if he were to physically present. Like his son Ashok Kumar once mentioned
– “My father became more popular after his death”.
Field Hockey, being India’s national sport was consumed
intensively among people until the 1980’s. Gold as a metal is not deficient in India
and is a national treasure linked with traditions and rituals; the same is for Olympic
gold in hockey. After 1980 Moscow Games, India has tried hard and each occasion
we have failed. Not just gold medal, even silver or bronze is a destination too
far in field hockey at the moment. We have eight gold medals including a six-game
streak since the time India made its Olympic debut in hockey way back in 1928
at Amsterdam. If not for the World War II, there could have been two more added
to the list. ‘If’
There are lots of stories linked to Dhyanchand, who by the
time retired from the army had contributed enough both in his field of work and
more so for hockey. He was a ‘Major’ at the time of his retirement and the name
has stuck since the time it was conferred upon him.
August 29th is officially India’s National Sports
Day. A lot of events take place commemorating the occasion and many of the
national sports awards are given away by the President of India. Rajiv Gandhi
Khel Ratna Award (the highest honour for an Indian athlete), Arjuna Award
(excellence shown by an athlete), Dronacharya Award (excellence in sports
coaching), Dhyanchand Award (lifetime achievement award) and Sports Development
Award titled ‘Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar’ with categories such as:
Nurturing the young talent, providing financial assistance, establishment and
management of sports facilities and academies and employment and welfare measures
for Sports persons.
The National stadium in New Delhi, which hosted the inaugural
1951 Asian Games, is an exclusive hockey stadium at present. It is more
popularly known as ‘Major Dhyanchand Stadium’ since 2002.
Along with these above mentioned highlights, there are many
stories that involve Dhyanchand. He is known to be Pele of hockey or for that
matter Sir Don Bradman himself had admitted and compared to Dhyanchand goal
scoring abilities to his run scoring ability in cricket.
Legend has it, Hitler after seeing ‘The Wizard’ humiliate the
German hockey team at 1936 Berlin Olympics offered him a higher rank in his
army and a German citizenship. Dhyanchand declined this offer and went on with
his life, the way he knew after having picked up his third gold medal.
Sometime in the late 90’s, at a quiz forum there was a
question on an athlete whose statue with four hands and four hockey sticks
being erected by the residents of Vienna. Who else but Dhyanchand? Yes, that
was the most popular guess and it has been a popular trivia for a long time. When
I was researching for sports questions, I always wanted to find a picture of
this statue and put it as a question.
After good number of years, my patience
finally ran out and I began to wonder if this story has any basis. If it were
to be true, why isn’t a single photograph of this on Google or atleast the
location of this statue? Indians travel a lot and out of these tourists, I would
expect a small percentage to have knowledge on Dhyanchand. They would have
surely found this. And isn’t this matter a curious one for the field hockey
fraternity?
While the search for this picture or the location was on, I
realised and asked the Austrian Hockey Federation directly on this. In one
sentence they wrote back to me “Nein, die
Geschichte stimmt nicht. Es gibt keine Statue in Österreich”; which
translates to - “No, the story is not true. There is no such statue in Austria”.
This is in response to me asking if they had ever come across a statue of
Dhyanchand with four hands and four hockey sticks.
Honestly, I would have loved to see it being true. However,
the sheen on Dhyanchand exploits does not diminish an iota by the mere absence
of a statue, a symbol if not anything else. The legend of this story continues
even today that such a statue exists. It might be an exaggeration or a poetic
license or whatever you call it in literary terms. I could relate to it being
true and I do not need any physical presence of a statue to tell me this. Such
was his domination and I say no more.
As I conclude writing this, the kid in me wishes some
resident of Vienna would one day discover and exhibit this statue, which was found
while he/she was cleaning or looking for some antique or precious stuff of
their ancestors at the cellar or roof of their house.
