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State Diary: Demise of Indian hockey in Hindi heartland
Published on Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 18:40, Updated on Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 22:38 in Sports section
Tags: State Diary, Uttar Pradesh
CHUCK DE! HOCKEY: In the Hindi heartland, no one seems interested in India's national game anymore.
For any reporter a Vox populi or voice of the people can be one of the easiest assignments ....When you are scrambling for news ideas every evening, a call from the assignment desk asking you to send a few vox-pops (that's what they are called in journalistic parlance) next morning comes as a ray of hope. And there is nothing like it when the topic happens to be cricket. Throw questions on cricket and public will crowd around you and your gun-mike will start to pick up voices from all directions.
"Tendulkar! What a player he is."
"Had he not got back his form...India would have lost the series."
Public hai saab janti hai.... So you start talking cricket, even a street smart paanwallah can turn one of the best critics of the game.
"Sachin is doing well because he has started to wait for the ball," says one.
"Yes, Shastri, Gavaskar had completely written him off. How can you judge a person by sitting inside studios?" another chips in.
In a cricket crazy country like India...you can see Dhoni's poster on the main entrance of U19 star Tanmay Srivastava's house in a middle class locality in Lucknow. You can see clones of Sahwag or Sachin in virtually every city.
In a felicitation ceremony in Lucknow you can see dozens of cops virtually mobbing Praveen Kumar, son of a UP police constable. Many of them eagerly wanting to know which cricket academy would be the best for their child.
"Its not necessary that a hawaldars son has to join the force. He can become a cricket star. See Praveen," remarks a cop.
It may be only be an advertisement, but when you see Super Star Shahrukh Khan don the cricket blues you begin to wonder is this the only game that is played in our country?
But often vox-pops cause headaches...especially when the topic is as dull as Hockey. So when we set out on our Vox-pops 'mission'... we found hockey assignment much tougher than we had imagined.
Ask someone about hockey most likely reaction you get from the public nowadays is a big frown.
"Excuse me."
"I am busy."
"I won't be able to say much.".....these were the only answers we managed to get when we asked some citizens for a sound-bite.
We were really puzzled. In the Hindi heartland where hockey once used to be a passion, we soon realized that best way to get answers on hockey was to get people to talk cricket. Surprising! In Uttar Pradesh from where at least half a dozen cricketers (read stars) have emerged in the national scene in the last two years...cricket seems to be the only game people want to discuss these days.
So began our vox-pop session:
Q). Do you know who is Praveen Kumar?
A). Oh. You don't know, pat came the reply. He was man of the match in the big finals in Australia. He virtually demolished Australia. He bowled a match winning spell. 4/45. What a find for India.
Q). What about Tanmay Srivastava?
A). He is the star for the future. His under-19 performance has been exceptional. How consistent he was in the U19 world cup. Do you know he is from Lucknow? He used to practice....
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Well I agree that parents do not encourage sport other than Cricket but this is because of the following reason.
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1. England has bitten us in our national game because we have mastered their game.
2. Exploited hockey players have ruined
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