I am a student, waiting for a job. So on the quest to find a job, I sat in the placement process of a company. The placement process started with a Group Discussion. And luckily I got the topic on which I could have spoken for hours. HOW TO PROMOTE INDIAN HOCKEY?
It was also a moment to find out, how much we Indians know about our national game. So the discussion started and the guy who spoke first came out with the reply I could have never imagined, "Dhanraj Pillay should be promoted as he is the best player in the current team". I was shocked to listen at the answer, is this what we know about our national game? At this moment I had to say, "My dear friend, Dhanraj Pillay has retired from hockey". By then it was time for some one else to pitch in, "We should have more movies like Chak De India. It was a very nice movie, and such an inspiring movie which shows the real life story of Kabir Khan". It was another shocker for me, but thankfully some one else from the group shot back, "It was not Kabir Khan, but Mir Ranjan Negi".
But it was not over yet, the best part of the GD had still to come, "We should ask Yuvraj Singh to do advertisement with his father (Yograj Singh) who was a hockey player" said one. It was time I decided to take matters at hand, and came out with the points of promoting hockey (well the ones which I have read from success stories of Holland and EHL, for more read the post 'FIH needs lesson in marketing').
I thought this would at least bring out some points from them, which I could include in my next post. But what I heard was this, "Do you even know the current hockey players of India?" I told that guy 13 names of current hockey players. Even this was not sufficient, "How do I know you are speaking the truth? You could be lying to us". "I am a small time hockey hockey blogger, so I know somethings about hockey and promotion of it" was my reply. The discussion continued to 5 more minutes but I continued thinking for 2 hours after that.
What should we do to tell our fellow countrymen about hockey. But I could not think of anything useful which would help to promote hockey. But one thing surely did click my mind, doing what traffic police does to educate about safety and traffic rules. Setting up stalls on the road and going to schools to educate people about safety and traffic rules. We should start doing same for hockey and thereby save hockey in the country.
This is my idea of promoting hockey in the country, if you have any suggestion please write it below and may be we can come up with something constructive for Indian hockey.
(The above picture has been taken from google images. I do not own them)
It was also a moment to find out, how much we Indians know about our national game. So the discussion started and the guy who spoke first came out with the reply I could have never imagined, "Dhanraj Pillay should be promoted as he is the best player in the current team". I was shocked to listen at the answer, is this what we know about our national game? At this moment I had to say, "My dear friend, Dhanraj Pillay has retired from hockey". By then it was time for some one else to pitch in, "We should have more movies like Chak De India. It was a very nice movie, and such an inspiring movie which shows the real life story of Kabir Khan". It was another shocker for me, but thankfully some one else from the group shot back, "It was not Kabir Khan, but Mir Ranjan Negi".But it was not over yet, the best part of the GD had still to come, "We should ask Yuvraj Singh to do advertisement with his father (Yograj Singh) who was a hockey player" said one. It was time I decided to take matters at hand, and came out with the points of promoting hockey (well the ones which I have read from success stories of Holland and EHL, for more read the post 'FIH needs lesson in marketing').
I thought this would at least bring out some points from them, which I could include in my next post. But what I heard was this, "Do you even know the current hockey players of India?" I told that guy 13 names of current hockey players. Even this was not sufficient, "How do I know you are speaking the truth? You could be lying to us". "I am a small time hockey hockey blogger, so I know somethings about hockey and promotion of it" was my reply. The discussion continued to 5 more minutes but I continued thinking for 2 hours after that.
What should we do to tell our fellow countrymen about hockey. But I could not think of anything useful which would help to promote hockey. But one thing surely did click my mind, doing what traffic police does to educate about safety and traffic rules. Setting up stalls on the road and going to schools to educate people about safety and traffic rules. We should start doing same for hockey and thereby save hockey in the country.
This is my idea of promoting hockey in the country, if you have any suggestion please write it below and may be we can come up with something constructive for Indian hockey.
(The above picture has been taken from google images. I do not own them)
I am Andrea from Germany and I am running a hockey village in India. I am a hockey player myself and for me it is extremely frustrating and sad what is going on with Indian Hockey...
ReplyDeleteYour country lost the sports spirit - it is all about politics...
Still 75% of India is rural area - means farmers. They are busy with earning their daily bread and butter. So why should they think of sports or even hockey? It is easier to grap a stick from somewhere and play cricket - you need just one stick and a ball and you can entertain 20 kids... where to get 20 hockey sticks from???
Second thing is that in the whole of India you have as much hockey turfs as one good hockey club in the Netherlands... so there is a big lack of facilities... even if you find a turf to play - the next one is probably 600km away - so how to do a test match??? Then you have to pay a huge amount of money to play for an hour on that turf (I experienced that many times already when I came over with hockey groups from Germany)...
And of course it is a lack of education - parents would rather allow their children to play cricket because there might be a chance to get rich then waisting their time with hockey...
Please have a look on my website www.hockeyvillageindia.com we are working hard to make the kids play hockey - in this case it works because the children don't have anything else to do and we built a sports ground for them as well as an english school.
But you are totally right - it has to start in the schools...
In Germany kids start playing already at the age of 5 or 6... - the earlier the better!
Maybe we can do something together - I would love to!!!
Andrea