Needless to say, I am a common man - Remembering the 'wizard' Dhyan Chand

“Needless to say, I am a common man.”

Thus begin the opening lines of “Goal”, an autobiography of a certain Indian, modest in height and manners, almost as if he was weighed down by the astronomical deeds he did on the field with a few inches of curved wood over a 30-year long career.

Dhyan Chand

Everything in the living and dying of him was common, but what was by no means common were the feats that he scripted decades ago whose reverberations continue to regale everyone even now. So when the news of the late Dhyan Chand being nominated for Bharat Ratna ricocheted in the press recently, it was in many ways a triumph for this Allahabad-born “commoner”.

For a person whose career was sculpted by the black of moonlit nights and recompensed by the yellows of the Olympic golds, a Bharat Ratna merely inducts the Government of India into the Army Major’s fan club; just another colour amidst the black and yellow backdrop. An award or even a nomination cannot measure his 1000-plus goal tally apart from coyly emblazoning his epoch-making wizardry.

“Morning shows the day”, goes an old saying. As a fourteen-year-old, a fledgling by sporting standards, Dhyan accompanied his father to a hockey match played between two army teams composed of English officers. One of the teams was down by two goals. Dhyan repeatedly told his father that if given a hockey stick, he could make the trailing team win.

His father shushed him while a British army officer sitting nearby chipped in with some not-so-nice words about his “tall” claims, adding that he was still a child.

Dhyan Singh insisted on playing, and finally was given his moment in the sun. Dhyan grabbed many eyeballs after scoring 4 goals by the end of the match! So enamoured was the officer that he inducted Dhyan into the ‘Children’s Platoon’. The morning had well and truly shown the day.

After joining the Indian Army as a Sepoy in Delhi’s First Battalion of the Brahmin Regiment, Dhyan began spending a lot of time with his only indulgence, hockey. Major Bhole Tiwari, his Subedar, a skilled player himself, was one of Dhyan’s early mentors. He inculcated into Dhyan the need to fashion his game to fit the team-based dynamic of hockey. Dhyan’s flamboyance was manoeuvred and pruned to greatness as he began representing his regiment in the army events from 1922-1926.

The call of duty kept him occupied and only allowed him to play at night. So while his regiment rested at night, he was the solitary reaper as he practised alone on the field with a ball and a stick. While they rested, his colleagues could hear him sharpening his skills at night. The cacophony of the sounds was like an ode to a great Indian in the making. This was how Dhyan Singh grew into Dhyan Chand, because he used to practise the game under moonlight (chand meant moon in Hindi).

In the final of the Punjab Indian infantry tournament in Jhelum in 1925, Dhyan Chand’s team was two goals down with 4 minutes to go. He positioned the ball on his stick and scythed open the defence with a marvellous sprint to score a goal. Two more goals followed in the remaining time to cap a dramatic last minute victory for Dhyan Chand’s team. The aftermath of the match saw Dhyan Chand earning the nickname the “Hockey Wizard”.

Shortly thereafter, Dhyan Chand was selected to represent the Indian team on a tour to New Zealand in the year 1926. Co-incidentally, this was the first Indian team to represent the country in any sport abroad. The tour turned out to be a successful assignment both for India and Dhyan Chand.

On a whole, out of the 21 matches India played, they emerged victors on 18 occasions, drawing two and losing one in the process. The Indians scored a cumulative 192 goals while giving away a measly 24. Dhyan Chand scored more than a century of goals and won plenty of hearts too with his mesmerising dribbling.

A British Indian hockey team was fielded at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics as Britain was not keen that India, then its colony, participate in the Olympics. England had won both the Olympic hockey golds till then. After rounds of consideration and appeals, the British allowed India’s entry as the British Indian hockey team.

For a fact, from 1928 till India won independence in 1947, Britain never participated in the same Olympic hockey tournament as India. The first encounter between India and Britain took place two decades later, in the 1948 Olympic hockey final at Wembley, London. India completed a 4-1 win over Britain to announce its dominance to the world.

These wisps of history apart, the Indian hockey team brought home the Holy Grail of sport, the Olympic gold, in 1928. There was a nice ring to the feat as this the gold medal won by the Indian hockey team was the first Olympic gold medal won by an Asian country in the modern Olympics.

Indian goalkeeper Richard Allen had the amazing record of not conceding a single goal throughout the tournament while Dhyan Chand was hailed as the Houdini of hockey with many goals in the tournament, including two in India’s 3-0 win in the final against Holland. Chand was promoted to the position of Lance Naik in the Indian Army after his return to India.

Four years later, the Indians defended their Olympic gold at the Los Angeles Olympics, beating USA 24-1 in the finals. Together, Dhyan Chand and his brother Roop Singh combined to score 18 goals, with Roop leading with 10. This Indian team had transformed into a world beating cavalcade with Dhyan Chand piloting the tremendous journey. More glory awaited the Indian team at the next Olympics.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics prompted a German newspaper to carry a headline, “‘The Olympic complex now has a magic show too” (poetically referring to Dhyan Chand’s stick work). Germany and India clashed in the final in the quest for gold and Germany started as favourites after their win over India in a practice match.

It turned out later that the solitary goal the Germans could manage against India’s eight in the final was the only one scored against them in the entire tournament. Three of the eight goals from India were issued from the stick of skipper Dhyan Chand. Adolf Hitler famously offered a job to Dhyan Chand, who played bare-footed in the second half of the match, impressed by his stupendous skills. Hitler’s job offer was rejected in what would count as one of the few refusals he ever faced.

A Padma Bhushan awardee, Dhyan Chand spent his post-retirement days giving back to the game which had made him a household name. He was the chief hockey coach at the National Institute of Sports, Patiala for several years and rendered yeoman service to a sport that was his making.

Dhyan Chand – Against whose silhouette future players will be evaluated

The “human eel” breathed his last on 3rd December 1979 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. His proclamation of being a common man was taken a bit too seriously when he was consigned to a general ward after being diagnosed of liver cancer and later given priority treatment only after a scribe wrote about the same.

For a man who captivated people of all shades and echelons across the globe for years together and against whose silhouette future players will be evaluated, the cold shoulder treatment he got in his later years was unbecoming of such a celebrated centre-forward.

A statue of Dhyan Chand with four hands and four sticks was built in Vienna, Austria, representing the awe that marked his game over the years.

A Bharat Ratna thus wouldn’t really add to Dhyan Chand’s stature or on-field pyrotechnics other than being yet another honour in the man’s life. This award though, might just allow Dhyan Chand a comfortable squirm in his eternal sleep at the very least. Fittingly enough, 29th August every year is celebrated as the National Sports Day to mark the legend’s birthday.