Triumph and Trauma of a Coach
M. K. Kaushik with K. Arumugam
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Everybody, Somebody
| My former Tata colleague Geet Sethi found
that many petty
officials were in top gear with ceremonial attires, while the players did
not have their intended jerseys or suits.
I was happy that a player of Geet's stature made it a point to highlight this recurring malady of Indian officialdom. At least sports aficionados back home came to know about the casualness with which our sports officials carried out their responsibilities. |
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n November
29, 1998, at about 2:30 pm, our team left the SAI campus for Bangalore
station. SAI coaches and many officials came to the station to see us off. They
flooded us with flowers and bouquets. The journey by Shatabdi Express was
pleasant, and we reached Chennai Central by 9:30 pm.
After about a 30-minute ride, we were pleasantly surprised to come to the Connemara Hotel of the Taj Group. In Bangalore, we had been told that we would be lodged in the Nest International hotel. The Taj was many notches better than Nest; in fact, the two hotels are not at all comparable.
We found out that the Taj Group of the Tatas were sponsoring our stay. It was a grand gesture from the corporate giant Tatas that they wanted to associate themselves with hockey. I was all the more happy since I spent my playing career with Tata Sports Club, leading the team in many domestic tournaments.
From Chennai, we flew to Bangkok, and reached Bangkok airport at 1600 hours after a pleasant 4-hour flight. There was a 2-hour wait for us to get our accreditations. Also, Baljeet Dhillon lost his passport during the bus journey to the picturesque Games village. It was luckily traced soon. We reached the village around 8 pm.
We are allotted the ground floor in a multi-storyed complex numbered B-12. Nearly 20 to 22 double rooms were in that wing, far more than our requirement. The organisers took into account accommodation for allied personnel like physiotherapist, video recording persons, doctor, masseur, etc. We had none of them! In fact, we had requested a doctor exclusively for our team, but that request was turned down by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA).
Our team manager was Mr. Mohinder Singh Malik, Inspector General of Police, Haryana. Malik was a Lord Krishna bhakt. He used to chant mantras with the team on match days.
Malik was jovial and intelligent, but somewhere in a remote corner of him was some ego. He did not like players asking him for petty tasks to be done. He might have thought that those were below the dignity of a man of his stature - the police chief of a state. He would also not accompany us for the morning session practices. Seniors naturally resented this. I played the role of mediator between the manager and the players to see that nothing untoward happened.
The hockey team was a popular one among the various Indian contingents. Once, G. S. Mander, our chef-de-mission, told me that he would rate the hockey gold on one side, and the rest of the golds on the other side. We were certainly motivated by this remark.
We saw the South Koreans recording our practice sessions from a distance. They had an exclusive team just for video recording. We were supposed to get one recording person from the IOA, but we never got one. We had to rely on locals for video recordings.
I remember I had tried hard to get the video of the India-Malaysia semi-final in the Commonwealth Games. The cost of the video turned out to be prohibitive. The then manager Balakrishnan thought that the IHF secretary Jyothi would arrange it. Our pleas to the IHF fell on deaf ears, and we never got the video.
Another sore point was that the non-arrival of the kits of the Indian Asian Games contingent. It was painful for the players of various teams to be in the Games village without proper kits.
The hockey team members were sporting the kits given by the SAI. It was not the first occasion, nor the last occasion, when our kits failed to reach us in time. We hockey players have become used to it.
However, my former Tata colleague Geet Sethi publicised the fact that the kits did not arrive even 4 days after the Indian contingent landed in Bangkok. Geet found that many petty officials were in top gear with ceremonial attires, while the players did not have their intended jerseys or suits.
I was happy that a player of Geet's stature made it a point to highlight this recurring malady of Indian officialdom. At least the sports aficionados back home came to know about the casualness with which our sports administrators carried out their responsibilities.
In this regard, I remembered a satirical piece entitled 'The Short Story of Responsibility'
"There are four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important work to be done. Everybody was asked to do it. Anybody could have done it, but nobody did it. Everybody thought that nobody could do it, but nobody realised that at least somebody should do it. Finally, everbody blamed somebody while nobody accused anybody."
On December 3, 1998, the Indian tricolour was hoisted in the Games village. The flag went up as the national anthem was played. At the end of the anthem, so typical of him, Dhanraj Pillai said "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" in a full-throated voice. It not only electrified the atmosphere, but also inspired us. Dhanraj is always swayed by the occasion, and today was no exception.
The Great Visionary J. R. D. Tata
Speaking to Tata Sports Club Members