From Gloom to Glory - by Mir Ranjan Negi

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Section 2 - 1998 Asiad Pre-Asiad Tournament			When Kaushik called up in the same style to his wife Usha, she simply banged the phone down saying, "Wrong number!". This was because Kaushik rarely calls her, and even when he calls her, he never says sweet nothings to her.
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or the Monitoring Committee meeting prior to our departure to the Asian Games, I sat at Saju's computer for six hours and prepared a nice report. The meeting started exactly at 11 am.

Present at the meeting were the Director General of SAI, Mathur, along with K. P. S. Gill and Jyothikumaran, the Officer on Special Duty, SAI, A. S. V. Prasad, and M. M. Somaya, the Government Observer. Kaushik read out the presentation and it was found impressive.

The trials were conducted the next morning after forming two teams. Ballal played very well in the trials. For nearly three hours after breakfast, we discussed the final team at the guest house. We reached the conclusion that it was not worthwhile sending the full Indian team for a pre-Asiad 4-nation tournament, and exposing ourselves to teams like Malaysia and South Korea. It was also possible that Pakistani observers would be watching our performance.

It was decided that only half the main team would go for the pre-Asian Games tournament. Mervyn and I were selected to go along with this team, while Kaushik was asked to train the main players back at Bangalore. Kaushik was not happy with this decision of the Federation. According to me, this was an excellent move by the IHF.

In the evening, we all went out for a walk, and Mervyn decided to make a phone call. He started by saying, 'Hi honey, how are you', 'Love you', etc. I asked him if he was talking with his girlfriend and he said no, it was his wife Gale on the line. He told me that it was always good to talk to your wife like this.

After some time, I called up my wife and started the same way, 'Hello darling, how are you'. Vinita immediately said, "Did you have a few drinks today?" I laughed.

But the best part of the story was when Kaushik called up in the same style to his wife Usha, she simply banged the phone down saying, "Wrong number!". This was because Kaushik rarely calls her, and even when he calls her, he never says sweet nothings to her.

Our pre-Asian Games tournament was a success, as we met and overcame weak opponents in Bangladesh, Thailand and Uzbekistan.