Grand masters

Legends like Dhyan Chand were heroes, but didn’t walk away with million-dollar contracts. They were heroes because they rose to the occasion by playing above the expectations set before them

Much before the overpaid and over-hyped days of sports, and dope-powered Olympics, were legends like Dhyan Chand. Fans watched him playing hockey standing on the street outside the Hockey Stadium near Churchgate in Bombay, looking through a chain-link fence. Equipped with the five S’s of sports training — stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit (the greatest of these was spirit) — they won because they weren’t concerned with who got the credit.

Then, ‘politics in sports’ was defined as being a diplomat, and an ambassador for one’s country. They were heroes, but didn’t walk away with million-dollar contracts. They didn’t need agents to massage their egos, or image consultants. They didn’t have private jets and a handful of homes. They were heroes because they rose to the occasion by playing to, and above, the expectations set before them. Freckles of integrity, they could not be cloned. For a few years, they were gods who walked the earth.

While some, like Chand, remain in public consciousness even posthumously, others like 90-year-old Leo Pinto, the goalie who saved India’s skin in the 1948 London Olympics against the hosts, live in considerable anonymity — save an occasional visit by young hockey players like Viren Rasquinha, who also happens to be a neighbour. In large part, Pinto is forgotten. As are cricketers Vijay Hazare, 89, and Mushtaq Ali, 90; former Mr Universe 91-year-old Mahohar Aich; tennis player Sumant Misra, 82, who reached the quarterfinals at the Wimbledon men’s doubles championship and the quarterfinals of the US Open doubles in 1947; Nandu Natekar, 71, the first Indian badminton player to win an international tournament in Kuala Lumpur in 1956; and 51-year-old Rajyashree Kumari, who bagged the Arjuna Award for shooting the same year as her father Dr Karni Singh, the erstwhile Maharaja of Bikaner, a four-time Olympian himself.

The moment they stopped filling us with a sense of wonder and became mere mortals, they were relegated to the ‘has been’ shelf. Today, as the country clamours to find the next great hope, some of our heroes relive their highs, and lows.

NINETY, NOT OUT — Mushtaq Ali, Indore

The gold embroidered ‘I-N-D-I-A’ still shines on his seven-decade-old cricket cap. This and the national tie are the only two physical reminders that Mushtaq Ali has of his glorious career. For Ali, his memories are more tangible souvenirs.

Seated on an enormous wooden sofa chair in the living room of Ali Manzil, his home in Indore, the 90-year-old leisurely flips through a sepia photo album. Ali, who was captain in the army of Maharaja Yashwantrao Holkar of Indore until 1940, points to a photograph with bat raised after scoring his first ever century, at Old Trafford, England, in 1936.

Back home, the rewards came later. Ali was awarded the Padmashri in 1964. On a pension of Rs 2,000 per month from the Madhya Pradesh government since 1998, the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) also decided to grant him a pension of Rs 5,000 per month from May this year, which was increased to Rs 10,000 in August. Ali hands over the money every month to wife Saleha Khatun, 75.

With no grouses, no complaints, he is content just to remember the golden days. Like the time a toast was raised to him at Buckingham Palace for being the first Indian to score a 100 runs on foreign soil. During his illustrious international career from 1934 to 1952, he played 11 tests, scoring 612 runs at an average of 32.21. Initially a left-arm spinner, his flamboyant batting style won him the opener’s slot.

Ali believes that keeping away from smoking and drinking has been the secret of his good health. His only debility is a cataract in his right eye. It doesn’t allow him to read beyond bold newspaper headlines, so he catches up with cricket on television.

“We were paid only Rs 250 per test match,” the former opener says wryly. “Today’s cricket involves a lot of money.” He also frowns at coloured uniforms. “The real charm lies in white flannel shirts and pants, and the skill of cricketers like Colonel C K Nayudu, Keith Miller, Frank Warren, and Sachin Tendulkar.”

The master blaster touched Ali’s feet after the Wisden Awards ceremony held in London two years ago, when Ali was awarded the Special Achievement award for his 1936 exploits.

Ali is the happy head of a family of 12 — his eldest son Gulrez Ali, brother Ishtiaq Ali and cousin Qazir Ahmed have all played first-class cricket. He laments today’s free-for-all commentary by non-players and the media. “When two men in the middle are facing 11 players, no one can gauge the kind of pressure they go through.” Ali remembers the pressure — after all, he bested it.

ON TARGET — Rajyashree Kumari, Bikaner

The lift opens into the top floor of the posh Prithviraj Road apartment block in New Delhi. A brass plaque reads ‘Princess Rajyashree Kumari of Bikaner’. Inside, amid Baccarat crystal and Venetian glass is a black-and-white photograph of an eight-year-old girl on the wall, receiving a trophy from Jawaharlal Nehru. Opposite, on a table, is another photograph of a young woman in a sari, standing next to Lord Mountbatten on the grounds of his Wales residence. Rajyashree Kumari welcomes you with a firm handshake, a British “hello”. Black trousers, a purple geometric print shirt, designer leopard-spots-and-diamante footwear, her eyebrows shaped in a sharp arch.

Daughter of four-time Olympian shooter Maharaja Karni Singh of Bikaner, who put India on the world shooting map, Rajyashree Kumari set a record at the age of seven. She won the National Air Rifle Championship in the under-12 section. At 10, she beat all competitors in all age groups in air rifle shooting and at 12 did an encore. In 1967, at the First Asian Shooting Championships in Tokyo, she bagged 21st place — the only woman, and 14 years old at that, in competition. In 1969, at the San Sebastian World Shooting Championships in Spain, she won the Silver Masters Shooters Badge in the Clay Pigeon Trap event, the eighth position in the Castillo de Chichon Trophy for ladies. In 1970, she scored 92 on 100 in Trapshooting at the National Shooting Championship when she was 17 — a record still unsurpassed. The list of victories and achievements goes on booming right until 1974.

Shooting and hunting was part of family life. “My father trained me from the age of six,” says Rajyashree Kumari, now 51. “I guess I had the aptitude for it.” Though born with a silver gun in her hand, it wasn’t always easy to focus only on shooting. The time, attention and dedication that her craft required sometimes irked her. “As I grew older, the competition grew tougher and more serious. Daddy was a terrible disciplinarian. And I was like any other teenager, into Beatles and the Rolling Stones,” she recalls.
 
If ever she was in doubt, it didn’t show in her performance. In 1969, both Rajyashree Kumari and her father were awarded the Arjuna Award — a unique achievement for a 16-year-old. “If I had to spotlight one moment of glory, it would be the Arjuna Award,” she says. “The other was the Second Asian Shooting Championships in Seoul where my cousin, Bhagyashree Kumari from Kota, and I were two of the four people representing India in an all-male Clay Pigeon Trap Shooting event. We brought back the bronze.” There were no sports camps and generous sponsorships at the time. Then, Maharaja Karni Singh single-mindedly worked to create an infrastructure for shooting — the Olympic shooting range at his Bikaner palace matched the World Shooting Federation’s norms.
 
“It’s an expensive sport. Today, if you win a medal, you get a hefty grant. In those days, Daddy had to fight with the government even for cartridges, which were difficult to import. He was mostly expected to dip into his own purse,” recalls Rajyashree Kumari, adding how Karni Singh also opened up his shooting range and his home for participants before a tournament. “We never performed for fame or money, but because we were expected to put in our best for the country.”

In 1973, Rajyashree Kumari married and moved to London. “It’s always best to go out on a high, isn’t it?” she smiles. She now divides her time between Bikaner, Delhi, Jaipur and London. On the board of several trusts, the princess has also set up the Maharaja Dr Karni Singhji Memorial Foundation, which works for social development in Bikaner.

The Bikaner shooting range lies silent now. Yet somewhere — with shooters like Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore kissing his silver medal, the olive tiara around his head — the echo of a legacy rings loud and clear.

THE GOLDEN GOALIE — Leo Pinto, Mumbai

Like its owner, the grey-green woollen 1948 Olympic blazer belies its age. Usually hung in a closet, covered in plastic with a naphthalene ball or two for company, it enjoys personal attention from Mumbai-based Leo Pinto. The metal buttons are shone every now and then with Autosol, a special brass polish, which Pinto’s son Darryl, a ship engineer, gets for his father from the Middle East.

The Westminster chime gifted to him by Tata Sports Club — he retired as its assistant secretary — for ‘25 years as best sportsman’ strikes 11 in the morning. Knotting his yellow Olympic tie, the 90-year-old smiles. A disciplined routine of waking up at 5 am and regular walks on the terrace of his Bandra flat hold him in good stead for physically demanding sessions like today’s photo shoot. Gripping a somewhat old hockey stick in his hands, he poses, standing, sitting, bending, looking sideways, the smile never leaving his face even for a flash. India’s oldest living Olympian is a natural. Pinto then happily hands over a file of pictures taken during his days as hockey player and coach.

“That photograph,” he points to a framed moment above the main door, “was taken during our stopover in Amsterdam right after we had won the Olympic gold in London in 1948.” Lips set in a stubborn line, the gritty face of the stocky young Pinto stares back at you. After an agonising collarbone injury that forced him out of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and the no-Olympic-war-years of 1940 and 1944, the goalie came through for India in London with extraordinary skill and mental toughness. Eyes shining and voice rising enthusiastically, he leans forward on his favourite rocking chair to show how he defended a penalty against the host country. “I won against them. I was too wily and skilful for the Englishmen.”

He also remembers how on a tour to East Africa in 1947, under the captainship of Dhyan Chand, the team played and won all 28 games. “It was a great joy to play under a man of his calibre. We just adored him,” Pinto says of Chand. On that tour, Pinto’s rendition of Bach’s Ave Maria, Trees, Because and O Danny Boy for Nairobi Radio astounded everybody. Pinto was born in Nairobi and its people were not quite sure what to cheer him more for — his spectacular saves or his music. During the seven-day voyage from Bombay to Mombassa on the British India boat SS Aronda, he had taught all his teammates Goan folk songs in between training sessions on the deck. “Though one of us got seasick, the journey was much like a holiday.”

Today, Pinto stays home most of the time, venturing out only on weekends. Accompanied by his son Darryl and daughter Susan, he sometimes attends the mass at the nearby St Francis of Assisi Church. “We never leave him alone,” says Darryl. Otherwise, Leo is self-reliant. He follows his diet — nine glasses of water, soaked almonds in the morning, bran or oatmeal for breakfast, and no red meat — to the T, attends to his phone calls, and goes about his day quietly.  

Staying up to watch the first few matches during the Olympics in August disrupted his routine a little. The last minute Australian goal that took the match, and any medal hopes, away from India drained him. After lying in bed for a whole day till his blood pressure stabilised, he watched only recorded matches after that.

Ask him about India’s showing and Pinto’s expression is non-committal, his response almost diplomatic. “We did not do badly,” he says. “We played all right. The foreign teams have improved and Indian hockey is still trying to cope with grass giving way to Astroturf.” Young players from the national team — midfielder Viren Rasquinha, who lives across the road from Pinto’s house, and goalkeeper Adrian D’ Souza — still drop in to visit Pinto. The junior team, in fact, had celebrated his birthday with a grand cake in April this year before leaving for the Asia Cup in Pakistan. “I wished them all the best and told them to rattle the opposition. And they did!”

Does he wish his team had enjoyed the overpowering media coverage that today’s players command? “We all played and won for the love of the game and the country. Nothing else came first,” he says with feeling. Perhaps it is this ardour that gave Pinto and his team the elusive winning edge.

What if they were to play now? “The gold medal would be back,” Pinto insists.

A FINE INNINGS — Vijay Hazare, Baroda

Popular memory remembers Vijayanand Samuel Hazare for two things: being mentioned in Amitabh Bachchan’s hilarious monologue in Hindi blockbuster Namak Halal and for his quote, “You must quit when people ask why, and not when they ask why not,” which became the tag line for the hit television show, Kaun Banega Crorepati.

But Vijay Hazare’s claim to fame runs far deeper. An ace batsman who gave India its first Test win, Hazare captained India 14 times, and amassed a career first-class average of 58.19, including 57 centuries, over 32 years of cricket. The only Indian cricketer who surpassed his Test average was Sunil Gavaskar. He recorded at least one Test century against all his opponents, and was the first Indian to make two tons in 1947-48 against Australia at the Adelaide Oval. With his splendid footwork and precise timing, Hazare’s permanent role was to rein in the innings whenever the top order came to grief. A quiet and undemonstrative captain, he was dropped as captain and player after a narrow loss in the West Indies in 1952-53. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did make amends later, by naming one major tournament for juniors after him.

Hazare’s first love, though, was football. “I was a very good footballer,” he smiles. “I played a number of matches. Even today, I love to watch them on TV. And tennis.” One of his teachers introduced him to cricket, and he started as a bowler. A highlight of his career was bowling Sir Don Bradman out on 13 in 1947-48 in Sydney. The bails flew 64 ft away. In that tour, he got Bradman’s wicket again, at 201 runs. “Baba and Bradman shared a great friendship, sending each other Christmas cards,” says his grandson Kunal.

Like many other outstanding players of his time, Hazare depended on the munificence of a royal family. He was the captain in the state army of Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad of Baroda. But when Indira Gandhi abolished the privy purses of princes, a Delhi school principal shot off a telegram to the cricketer, offering to take him on the staff. Hazare chose to remain where he started. He continued in the service of the Maharaja and played first-class cricket until 1966.

A household name in Baroda, his name strikes an instant chord in the city. Fingers point towards his house behind a hospital located opposite the Maharaja Pratapsinh Coronation Gymkhana Ground, venue of one of his celebrated exploits — the world-record 577-run partnership with Gul Mohammed.

Now 89, Hazare is recovering from a minor operation, and is a tad unsteady on his feet. “I drove till I was 75,” he says proudly. “I would go out every day to the bank and the market. My eyesight is still very sharp, though I need glasses to read.” As he relaxes after the photo shoot, he is flanked by his family — wife Pramila, daughter-in-law Bharati and Kunal. His only son Ranjit, a former Ranji Trophy player for Baroda, works in Kuala Lumpur as a senior engineer with petrochemicals giant Petronas. “Baba is the most disciplined man I know,” says Kunal.

Though Hazare was coach to the royal family of Baroda, he didn’t coach either his son or grandson, who has played Ranji Trophy in the under-17 category. “Baba knew that my coaches were D K Gaekwad and later Kiran More, and he never interfered,” says Kunal. “Anyway, he doesn’t like to get involved in controversies. He is always content with what he has. He speaks very little.” As the youngsters practicing at the nets for an under-17 tournament at the Motibaug Cricket Ground gather around Hazare, asking him to hold the bat again, his bright smile says more than words ever could.

MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE — Manohar Aich, Kolkata

Reaching a narrow, endlessly winding lane peopled with cycle rickshaws near Kolkata airport, ask for Manohar Aich at Jhuggi Para and everyone points the way. Several twists and turns later, we find a three-storied white house in a courtyard. A painted sign reads: Manohar Aich International, Western Dance, Figure Shaping, Body Building. A fitting introduction to India’s first Mr Universe, in 1951.

The courtyard is filled with women. Someone asks if we are reporters. Another, more authoritative, is his eldest daughter. “Baba has a programme at 4, please be quick,” says Bani Banerjee, 60. And a head pops out of the upstairs window questioning our presence. That’s Aich. He receives us in a dim blue room with trophies mounted on the wall and happy mongrels wagging their tails at his feet. Never mind the 91 years, at 4’11” he is definitely the ‘Pocket Hercules’ the newspapers dubbed him when he won the title.

Aich grew up in a village near Comilla, in present-day Bangladesh. Even as a little boy, two things interested him above everything else: music and bodybuilding. He would follow the kirtan parties that went from village to village until his uncle bought him a khol, a percussion instrument. He would also sit for hours watching the local boys practice with lathi and dumbbells at fitness clubs. Caught up in that tradition, Aich, then seven, drank in the principles of bodybuilding with a passion.

When Bengal split into two, Aich came to live in West Bengal. Bodybuilding continued to be his dream, though he found himself a job as a fitter and rigger in the Air Force in 1941. That ended abruptly with a brief spell in jail during Partition. When released, he had no money. It was then that an American magazine caught his eye and he read about the Mr Universe contest. No one helped him. “I don’t believe in God,” Aich says, still disgruntled about having to scrape together the money for his fare to London. He found himself a job in the railways there while he prepared for the contest.

When he returned to India with the title, even though there was no official recognition, he found himself in demand. Smearing his body with grease and displaying his muscles to appreciative crowds during Durga Puja, the standard routine included tearing up packs of cards and telephone directories, breaking iron chains and bending bars. He took this routine to circuses, the likes of Gemini and Empire. He also had a kirtan group where he played the khol and his wife sang.

At 91, Aich gives his profession the credit for having kept him healthy. He has never been hospitalised and has only been ill twice, once at 12 with malaria and once with cholera at 22. Today, his profession also brings him money as never before. His two sons run the gyms in his home, one upstairs and one downstairs. The monthly fee is Rs 200. He keeps the equipment he trained with to show what it was like before motorised treadmills.

Aich has always been a busy man. In the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, he was asked to campaign for the BJP in Kolkata because of his celebrity status. Whenever there’s local beauty pageant or a bodybuilding contest, he is in the front row. Aich is content — the only thing that upsets him is the death of his wife, two years ago. She built this house and managed his finances. Now his daughter Bani looks after him and joins him in the kirtan singing.

Aich is delighted at the idea of being photographed with his music — it’s different from being clicked with all the trophies that line room after room, and none of them from the Government — but he refuses to be rushed and is very fastidious about his appearance. He shaves once a week, and that’s when he looks his best, he says, as he poses for the camera. Hercules is back.

HOLDING COURT — Nandu Natekar, Pune

At 3.30 in the afternoon, the indoor badminton courts at Mumbai’s Cricket Club of India echo with sounds of squeaking sneakers, whacked shuttles and enthusiastic shouts. Suddenly there is silence. Coaches and players stop midway through their training to meet the man who has just walked in.

Nandu Natekar’s place in badminton history may not be evident from the only wall with photographs here — four Indonesian players occupy the frames. “At least two of the photographs could have been of Indians,” he says wryly. But the first Indian badminton player to win an international tournament in 1956 still remembers how fans would line up overnight to witness his matches here.
 
When he played, journalists used phrases like ‘Russian ballet’ to describe his on-court movement. Fans and fellow players called him ‘gifted’ and ‘a magician on court’. The two scrapbooks in which his brother Arun has compiled newspaper clippings convey the awe Natekar inspired in his heyday. At least 500 articles are stuck onto the now-brittle pages, some with bold headlines like ‘India needs a dozen Natekars’. Remind him about it and the 71-year-old shrugs it off modestly: “Maybe, maybe.”

These days, Natekar is seen more at his son, former Davis Cup player Gaurav’s tennis coaching centre in Pune, giving his second love some time. Sometimes, he visits Mumbai to watch local matches and practice sessions. Natekar chose badminton over tennis in 1951 at Cricket Club of India. That year, he earned the unique distinction of playing a junior tennis final and a senior badminton semi-final. Everyone, including his father Mahadev Hari Natekar and Sushil Ruia, the then president of the Maharashtra Badminton Association (MBA), agreed he should pursue just one game — badminton was the unanimous choice.
 
Natekar himself has served as the president of the MBA for three years from 1993 but today he doesn’t wish to play or coach. “After retirement [he worked with HPCL till 1991], I wanted to listen to music, travel, trek, and watch Marathi plays.” An idyllic plan that was marred in 1995 with the untimely passing away of his wife who shared his interest in Marathi literature, if not music. Since 2001, he has been learning Hindustani classical music. “Though the teacher is very irregular, I try to practice on my own using the electronic tanpura,” says Natekar, who listens to Indian classical music and old Hindi film songs, tunes in to his all-time favourite Radio Ceylon, and reads autobiographies and biographies in Marathi. This is when he is not playing with his one-and-a-half-year-old grandson Aaditya.

None of his five grandchildren have taken after him or his two daughters and son, all tennis players. His daughters gave up tennis for what he thinks was just an excuse. “They said, ‘Baba, this is too much. Everyone asks us whether we will play like you. How can we promise that?’ But they tried,” he laughs affectionately.

Now, Gaurav is trying to push his father into taking a supervisory role at Natekar Sports and Fitness Shop in the Aundh suburban neighbourhood of Pune. Natekar usually pops into the shop at the end of his hour-long evening walk to “nowhere in particular”. He has discovered numerous tracks around his home. “Some routes end with a spectacular view of the sky. I enjoy that.”

Sometimes fellow walkers come up and ask him whether he is Nandu Natekar. He enjoys that too. “I feel proud and content,” he says, then smiles. “Especially because I am a lazy man, you know. Everything has come naturally to me.”

LOVE MATCH — Sumant Misra, Delhi

Nicknamed ‘Tiny’, Sumant Misra carries the moniker like a crown on his 6 feet and 2 inches. Another salutation that sits well on the 82-year-old’s tall frame is the feat of playing the quarterfinals of the Wimbledon men’s doubles championship and the US national doubles, both in 1947.

Also called ‘the grandfather of Indian tennis’, Misra was initiated into the game by his father Sri L P Misra, then chief commissioner of Indian Railways. As a 14-year-old, his favourite turf was the Calcutta South Club. That’s where Misra met his contemporaries, Narendra Nath, Man Mohan and Dilip Bose. However, Misra was the only one to participate in the junior national championship, the national championship and national veteran championship. In return, all he got was a pat on the back from his boss at the Calcutta Port Trust. No appreciation from the government, let alone the Arjuna Award, no money. “Then, sports was seen as a hobby,” recalls Misra, who retired from Indian Aluminium as general coordination manager over two decades ago. He lives in New Delhi with his wife. His elder son Gaurav is a former national tennis champion and director of the tennis centre at Columbia University, New York.

Misra’s happy to talk about the ‘good’ old days. “Did you know that soon after Partition, we didn’t have any fresh stock of sports equipment for two years? All our sports accessory factories were in Sialkot, Pakistan.” Or, “At the airport in Sydney, the customs officers never asked us anything about our baggage. All they wanted to know about was tennis. At Palam Airport [in Delhi], it was the opposite.” And, “Initially, Europeans used to freak out seeing me in stiffly ironed cotton full pants. They wore flannel trousers, and were quite amused by my sartorial sense.”

More than half a country later, Misra’s wardrobe has undergone a complete makeover. There are Adidas shorts and Benetton tees for tennis and bush shirts and finely cut trousers for golf. On weekdays, you can catch him in a suit or bandhgala at work in the Sir L P Misra & Shyama Misra Trust, an NGO founded by his father. “Thanks to tennis, I managed to see quite a bit of the world,” says Misra. “My expenses were looked after by the All Indian Tennis Association.” Misra was the association’s honorary secretary from 1963 to 1966.

Misra, a former Davis cup winner, says there’s more money in tennis now. “In our days, Davis Cup was only for amateurs. Now, Mahesh Bhupathi is a professional and yet plays for the Davis Cup.” At his Delhi home in Kaushalya Park, his trophies and cups lie scattered all over his living room. Misra polishes them occasionally wishing the Arjuna Award were among them.

RETIRED HURT

These lost stars gave their all for the country. What did they get in return?

Who is the only Indian footballer to score a hat trick at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics? P K Banerjee, Sailen Manna, Shabbir Ali, or Neville D’Souza?” This Rs 1 crore question, which remained unanswered, on Kaun Banega Crorepati brought fame for D’Souza 20 years after his death. The Bombay striker died of a brain haemorrhage in 1980. However, it was only this year that the Mumbai District Football Association commemorated him with a cash award given to his wife.

Footballer Noor Mohammad, a Hyderabad City Police team member, competed in three consecutive Olympics in 1948, 1952 and 1956. Refusing offers from Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, he chose to stay with his team. Living on a pension of Rs 2,000 from the National Welfare Fund for Sportspersons since 1995, Mohammad died of tuberculosis in a two-room house in Hyderabad four years ago. A year before, in 1999, the Mahindra and Mahindra football team had presented him Rs 5,000. Spurred into action, more contributions poured in from many quarters, but too late in the day.

Almost 40 goals were scored during India’s hockey challenge in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. But for Pune player Joseph Philips, the glitter soon faded and poverty took over. He even had to pledge his medal for a meal. A year before his death in 1986, he was awarded the Shivaji Chhatrapati award. The Rs 5,000 didn’t make much of a dent. It took a newspaper report 12 years after his death in 1986 for the authorities to wake up. His 74-year-old widow Mary Philips was found eking out a living cleaning utensils in his hometown Khadki, near Pune. The Indian Hockey Federation and the Sports Ministry eventually came forward with money and support.

Dhyan Chand, who led the Indian hockey team to its thumping win over the hosts in the 1936 Berlin Olympics while Hitler watched from the gallery, is much better known than Philips. A master dribbler, he was also a part of the 1928 and 1932 gold medal winning teams at the Olympics. But in 1972, when the Munich Olympics Organising Committee invited him as a special guest, the then central government refused to sponsor his visit. On a measly pension of Rs 400, without any government or federation aid, he spent the last days of his life a bitter man. When diagnosed with liver cancer in the late 1970s, Chand was dumped into the general ward of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi — he passed away in Delhi on December 3, 1979.
 
Featured in Harmony Magazine
October 2004