On Monday, eight-time gold medallists India failed to make it to the Olympics for the first time in 80 years, inviting a raging debate over Indian hockey’s sorry state of affairs. Unfortunately, though, hockey despite being our national game doesn’t get the importance it should get, people have reacted with shock and despair to India’s defeat. A heartbroken hockey fraternity on Monday reacted in anger and demanded the ouster of Indian Hockey Federation President K P S Gill following the team’s unprecedented failure to make the cut for the Beijing Olympics.

But as Indians, how many of us are really mourning defeat at a game we were good at, perhaps half a century ago. The game of hockey, it seems, is standing on the road and looking through a glass showroom - a museum exhibit, old and forgotten. It is time for some heads to roll and do some serious soul-searching to decide that if we cannot qualify to Olympics then should we keep hockey as our national game.

Today when the mass hysteria is reserved only for cricket victories and the national game is languishing amidst the pitfalls of Indian sport here is the story of a man who, on the field, was named the “Wizard of Hockey” for he exerted complete control on the ball.

They say you can judge a man’s legend by the quality of myths that surround him. By that measure itself, Dhyan Chand was an extraordinary man. To hear tales of his craftsmanship was to wonder whether his stick was designed by Merlin himself. They broke his stick in Holland (1928) to check for a magnet; the Japanese (1932) decided it was glue; Adolf Hitler (1936) offered to make him a corporal.

The hockey wizard not only mesmerised millions within pre-partition India but became a household name in all hockey-playing nations. His deft stick-work and amazing ball control left fellow players and spectators awestruck. For two decades, until he bid goodbye to international hockey in 1948, Dhyan Chand became virtually synonymous with hockey, playing numerous matches and scoring hundreds of goals.

He was admired and feared by his opponents, who felt that the ball got stuck to his stick when he played. But his fame notwithstanding, Dhyan Chand, a centre-forward, was an innately selfless person. If he felt either of the two flanks was in a better position to score, he would flick the ball to the well-placed player instantly.

After seeing him play at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Hitler offered Dhyan Chand, a Major in the British Indian Army, German citizenship and a higher army post. The prolific striker politely turned it down. Dhyan Chand was part of three gold medal-winning Indian teams at the Olympics — in Amsterdam (1928), Los Angeles (1932) and Berlin, where he was the captain.

Early Days

Born in a Rajput (Bais) family of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, on August 29, 1905, he was named Dhyan Singh.

One of his two brothers was Roop Singh, who too went on to become a prolific hockey forward. His father Sameshwar Dutt Singh was a Subedar. Soon afterwards he moved to Jhansi where he spent his formative years.

After an early education he joined the army at the age of 16 (in 1922) and soon took to hockey, despite a childhood fascination for wrestling. He was a Sepoy of the 14 Punjab Regiment.

Dhyan Chand quickly came to acquire excellent dribbling skills and an uncanny knack for scoring goals. As Dhyan Chand displayed his abundant hockey skills, Pankaj Gupta, his first coach, predicted he would one day shine like a “chand” [moon]. “That is how father got his surname ‘Chand’,” said Ashok Kumar Singh, his son, himself a hockey Olympian who starred in India’s 1975 World Cup triumph.

Player

In a match in 1927 he exhibited his skills against the English hockey team, netting 36 of India’s 72 goals in 10 matches, at the London Folkstone Festival.

In 1928 Chand was selected to represent the Indian hockey team in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Chand helped India win the gold medal winning the finals against the Netherlands by a score of 3-0. He played in the centre-forward position and scored two of India’s three goals.

On the field he was named the “Wizard of Hockey” for he exerted complete control on the ball. It appeared that the ball used to stick to his hockey stick while playing. So great was the magic of Dhyan Chand that the Tokyo officials broke his hockey stick to search for a magnet inside, and tried to console themselves saying he had added some sort of glue. On one occasion, a lady from the audience asked Dhyan Chand to play with her walking stick instead. He scored goals even with them! An artist in Vienna depicted him as having eight arms.

When everbody else thought he was going to shoot, he passed. Not because he was unselfish (and he was), but to induce surprise. And when he passed to you, you did not want to miss. On that 1947 tour, he put through a wondorous ball to KD Singh Babu, then turned his back and walked away. When Babu later asked the reason for this odd behaviour, he was told, “If you could not get a goal from that you did not deserve to be on my team.”

To say he was an icon is correct, but only a context can provide a precise measure of such status. Gurbux Singh, 1964 Olympian, provides it when he says,”When I grew up, to achieve anything in sport was to do it in hockey.” As the century turned into its last quarter, it held pre-eminence, lifted by India’s first Olympic gold in 1928 and kept there till the `70s by a conveyor belt, so terribly rusted now, that rolled out champions like fast food.

In the 1932 Summer Olympics held at Los Angeles, USA, the team under Lal Shah Bukhari defended their title winning the gold. The team routed the United States hockey team 24-1, a record that exists till today. He contributed eight of those goals, and along with his brother Roop Singh formed a formidable core of the team. That particular year, he had scored 133 goals out of India’s 338. He was supposidely so fast that TV analysis of his gameplay was rendered too slow!

Dhyan Chand rated Beighton Cup final of 1933 as his most memorable match. The match was played between Jhansi Heroes and Calcutta Customs. Surprisingly, he did not score in that match. He only provided the vital pass for the lone goal scored by the Jhansi Heroes. On their return journey, the Jhansi Heroes were crammed in an unreserved third class compartment. However, the warm welcome received at the station made it the most memorable match for Dhyan Chand.

Adolf Hitler & Dhyan Chand

1936 Summer Olympics final

Initially, Dhyan Chand’s regiment refused to give him the permission to go to the 1936 Summer Olympics at Berlin, as it was engaged in a fight with the tribals in Waziristan. However, after a second request, the permission was given.

Dhyan Chand captained the Indian team in 1936 Summer Olympics final. His team had gone down to the Germans in a friendly match, shortly before the Olympics. But this time, India’s forward line was reinforced by the inclusion of Ali Iqtidar Shah Dara, who managed to reach Berlin just in time for the final.

In a patriotic note, they raised the Indian tricolour in the dressing room and sang Vande Mataram an Indian nationalist song, rather than the British national anthem, which they were obliged to sing.

Indians were leading 1-0 at the half time. In second half, they scored 7 goals. After trailing 0-6, the Germans are reported to have resorted to body play. In a clash with the German goalkeeper, Dhyan Chand broke one of his teeth. But the valiant Rajput returned to the field after first aid. When the match ended, his contribution in India’s 8-1 win was 6 goals.

The match was attended by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler who left midway as he couldn’t bear to see his “racially superior” team being demolished. Sensing something amiss, he was ordered to change his stick, but the flow of goals continued. India won the match 8-1, with Dhyan Chand scoring 6 goals. A reporter said about Dhyan Chand’s performance - “With a flick of the wrist, a quick glance of his eyes, a sharp turn and then another turn, and Dhyan Chand was through”.

Adolf Hitler left his special box in a huff, after Germany’s rout. Next day, he invited him for a meeting the following day. Hitler asked Dhyan Chand what post did he hold in India. On learning that the hockey wizard was a mere Naik in the Indian army, Hitler offered to make Dhyan Chand a Field marshal should he decide to live in Germany. Dhyan Chand politely refused, saying that he had a large family to look after, in India. Another version is that Hitler called him up at the end of the match and asked him the question, “What will you take to play for Germany?” To this, Dhyan Chand replied “Nothing sir, India is my India”. He had scored a total of 59 out of the team’s tally of 175 that Olympics.

Fan incidents

Dhyan Chand was a very simple man. Once he played in an exhibition match with a women’s team at Prague, after the Olympic Games. A female fan was highly impressed by his game and expressed her desire to kiss him. He stepped back, saying that he was a married person!

Once, some time after the Partition of India, Dhyan Chand was seen at the Lahore railway station, on way to Peshawar as a part of the Indian team that was scheduled to take part in Joshan celebrations in Afghanistan. Thousands of his Pakistani fans rushed to the station to catch a glimpse of the wizard. The surging crowds led to breakdown of all arrangements. One of the members of the Indian team, Krishan Kumar Kakar narrated “Such was the scene on all stations right up to Peshawar where the train reached more than four hours behind the schedule.”

Don Bradman and Dhyan Chand

Here’s a sweet tale on the side. In 1935, Bradman and Dhyan Chand met in Australia, and it is a measure of this man’s innocence that Dhyan Chand writes, “The picture of that meeting I will cherish all my life.” Did Bradman know who he had met?

During a 1935 tour of New Zealand and Australia, he scored 201 goals out of the team’s tally of 584 in 43 matches. Don Bradman and Dhyan Chand once came face to face at Adelaide in 1935, when the Indian hockey team was in Australia. After watching Dhyan Chand in action, Don Bradman remarked “He scores goals like runs in Cricket”.

Dhyan Chand’s last days

It is said Dhyan Chand’s greatness was elevated by the illustrious company he kept on the field; conversely, how fine he must have been to stand so taller than them all. There is a beauty to hear the grey-bearded Gurbux Singh, breathless, talking about how even in 1959, way past his best, no man at the Indian training camp could win the ball in a bully-off with him.

It makes it sadder still that even this man, as he turned grey, should tell his sons not to play hockey for it gave him so little in return. He coached for a while, then settled in his beloved Jhansi, still the fisherman, the hunter of deer, who loved to cook - but short of money.

“Once he went to a tournament in Ahmedabad, and they turned him away not knowing who he was,” says Ashok (son of Dhyan Chand). “And he never saw any comfort.”

When Dhyan Chand fell ill, liver cancer as it turned out, and came to Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, they dumped him in the general ward. A journalist’s article eventually got him moved to a special room, but the fact that public memory had to be jogged tells its own story.

In Jhansi they had a funeral, not in the ghat, but on the ground that he played on. Players came, but it seemed a little too late. It made it hard to forget the first few words of his autobiography ‘Goal’: “You are doubtless aware that I am a common man.”

Dhyan Chand wasn’t, but he died like one.

Honours & Awards

• August 29 is celebrated as National Sports Day when the national sporting awards are handed out by the President of India at Rashtrapathi Bhavan. Dhyan Chand’s imposing statue at the entrance of the National Stadium (main venue of the inaugural Asian Games in 1951) is a reminder of the all-time legend of hockey who brought so much glory to both the game and the nation.

• In 1956, at the age of 43, he retired from the army with the rank of Major. The Government of India honoured him that year by conferring him the Padma Bhushan (India’s third highest civilian honour). However the Arjuna award for sports excellence was never awarded to him.

• Government of India released a postage stamp in his honour on December 3, 1980, exactly a year after he died in hospital.

• Dhyan Chand won a number of awards and accolades during his illustrious career. One of the most touching gestures came from the residents of Vienna, who built a statue of the Indian with four hands and four sticks, signifying his unparallel control over the ball.

• One of his statues is near the India Gate, New Delhi while another has been erected in 2005 at Medak in Andhra Pradesh.

• In 2002, the union sports ministry of India introduced a Lifetime Achievement Award in sports in the name of Dhyan Chand.