Forgive Me Amma: The Life & Times of Dhanraj Pillay

It is the true story of a super star whose career has been interspersed with brilliant performances and unseemly scenes. It is for the readers to decide whether they want their wards to be crowd-pullers or medal-winners.

— Balbir Singh Sr

(triple Olympic gold medallist)

Dhanraj is a character who cannot easily be showcased in a straight-jacket. He is beyond definition, complex, controversial, inexplicably humane on occasions, clearly confounding admirers and critics alike. But in whatever way you look at it, Dhanraj’s life and times offer a fascinating insight.

Written with a feeling of anger and anguish without sacrificing details or overstating them, Sundeep has more than succeeded in presenting to the reader a readable, somewhat poignant, but a transparent portrayal of Dhanraj Pillay.

— S. Thyagarajan

(Deputy Sports Editor, The Hindu)

The author, Sundeep Misra, whom I have had the privilege and honour of knowing from the beginning of his career, has come up with a complete picture, warts and all, of the mercurial Dhanraj Pillay who has been the pride and joy of Indian hockey. In the process, the highs and lows of Dhanraj’s career also reflect the sorry state of Indian hockey which at one time was acknowledged as the national sport of India. Every concerned sports lover in the country knows Indian hockey sure needs a lot of help and commitment from all of us to restore it to its lost glory.

— K. Jagannadha Rao

(former Sports Editor, PTI)

Cover Image : Indian hockey player Dhanraj Pillay looks dejected after India’s defeat in the match against the Netherlands in the Olympic Games 2004 in Athens on 14 August, 2004.

© Sundeep Misra, 2007

Photographs © The Hindu

First published 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the author and the publisher. The views and contents of the book are solely of the author. The publisher may not subscribe to them.

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To Tapas Sen and Jyoti Patnaik for always being with me. Do keep watching over me.

Nothing would ever be complete if I were not to pause a bit and salute my father, the man who introduced me to sports, and according to me, was the most stylish batsman I have ever seen. It was he who introduced me to the BBC Sports Round-up in those rocking days of the radio. When most parents were whipping their children to put in an extra hour of studies, my father was ensuring that I heard all the sports reports on the radio.

Acknowledgements

Foreword

A Legend in the Making

Emergence of a Legend

World Cup, Sydney, 1994

Taste of Super Stardom

SAF Games Final, Chennai, 1995

Was the Match Fixed?

The Qualifier, Barcelona, 1995

‘Umpiring Did Us In’

Atlanta Olympics, 1996

Captain and Coach Going Their Own Way

World Cup, Utrecht, 1998

Return of the Star

Commonwealth Games, Kuala Lumpur, 1998

‘We Work Hard While You Party Hard’

Asian Games, Bangkok, 1998

‘I Haven’t Become Slow; Have I?’

Asia Cup, Kuala Lumpur, 1999

‘Hate Being Asked about the Misses Made’

Azlan Shah Cup, Kuala Lumpur, 2000

‘I Don’t Think I will Ever Get Over It’

Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000

Obsession with Himself and His Game

Champions Trophy, Cologne, 2002

Captaincy, an Honour

Asian Games, Busan, 2002

Sacking of a Coach

Kuala Lumpur, 2002

World-level Medal Eludes Him Again

Champions Trophy, Amsterdam, 2003

Delivering a Promise

Kuala Lumpur, 2003

Battle for Athens

National Stadium, New Delhi, 2004

End of a Brilliant Run

Athens Olympics, 2004

We All Grow Old

Some Facts & Figures

The first time I saw Dhanraj Pillay was at Gwalior during the National Hockey Championship. In 1988-89, he was thin, dark and no one in the packed stands of the hockey stadium could have ever imagined that this Pune/Mumbai lad would go on to become an absolute legend of the game. He was a very quiet individual and spent his time listening intently to his coach Cedric D’Souza at training sessions. After Bombay won the title, beating Punjab in the final, extensive interviews revolved around Cedric D’Souza, who had brought a young team and won the National Championship. Dhanraj didn’t figure in the scheme of things then.

However, there was one man, a local coach in a school at Gwalior whose name I can’t remember now, who told me after watching Dhanraj play that if this boy is groomed and nurtured, he could go on to become one of India’s greatest hockey heroes. I am sure even Cedric never thought that Dhanraj would play hockey at an international level, leave alone play in four Olympics.

With Dhanraj, you can either be a journalist or a friend — and this I discovered after the Utrecht World Cup, 1998. My criticism of him for hiding an injury to remain the Indian captain didn’t go down well with him. For that bit of freedom that I enjoy as a journalist, he presented me a bouquet of his choicest abuses. But with time, we shook hands and settled matters. Or did we?

Over time I also realised that there can be no one quite like him in the hockey world. Despite the charges levelled against him — he manipulates the media, uses emotion as a tool to get his way, has a love-hate relationship with his coaches, constantly demands attention, threatens to quit hockey every year, gets into confrontations with the umpires, is arrogant, doesn’t know what to talk and when — Dhanraj Pillay emerges as India’s best known hockey player worldwide.

No one, and this I am saying with due respect to all the Olympic gold medal-winners, has kept hockey alive the way this man has. Everybody had done their best — from the Indian Hockey Federation presidents to secretaries to biased selectors — to ensure that Dhanraj’s career was curtailed but this magnificent showman of Indian hockey beat them all at their own game. It’s not that he used people to get into the team. The fact is, had he not been super-fit and tremendously talented, he could not have made it to four Olympic Games, four World Cups and four Asian Games — let’s not go into the details of the international matches for they would make for another book.

Single-handedly, this man kept the game alive while others with their inept knowledge of the sport tried everything in their power to pull him down. If there had been no Dhanraj Pillay in the last 10 years, even the media that adores the glamour and show-biz of cricket, would have downed the shutters on this sport. Yes, Dhanraj likes to be in control. But then who doesn’t? Ask K.P.S. Gill and his bunch of selectors for that answer. Maybe, that’s why he never liked the idea of an unauthorised biography. Arre, aisa kya hai, jo tu likhna chahata hai aur mujhse nahin puch sakta? queried Dhanraj, when he came to know that the book on him was unauthorised. He did try and convince me that if we both wrote it together, it would be better. But with me it has always been the freedom of writing on what I have seen and believed in. And I had seen him at virtually every tournament that he played. There were many who refused to be interviewed for this book and many who said, Please don’t quote us. Surprisingly, many publishers refused, saying that they didn’t want an unauthorised book. Thankfully, Shobit agreed and patiently waited for me to finish this book.

I tried to speak to members of Dhanraj’s family but each of them refused. Obviously, he had told them not to speak to me. I respected his feelings because I knew Dhanraj would go into his shell if he were refused anything. And I had refused to co-operate with him on an authorised biography. But there were people in his inner circle who spoke to me and made me understand what Dhanraj was and why in so many ways he was invariably misunderstood.

Hockey has given me everything. It has given me the reason to be a journalist, though the greatest honour was to watch Dhanraj Pillay in action on the field. To be able to relate to his play and enjoy the sheer magic of his craft — for that, I will always be grateful to him.

I am also grateful to K. Jagannatha Rao, former editor for sports, Press Trust of India, for giving me the opportunity to write for him, thus enabling me to pay my bills when I travelled abroad. I am also thankful to him for standing up to pressure from a senior functionary in the IHF who didn’t want me to write on hockey for PTI. To him, Mr Rao’s reply was, Do I interfere in your selection meetings? So why are you bothered who writes for PTI?

I can only say thanks to Harpal Singh Bedi for letting me do assignments for UNI; to Clayton Murzello from the Midday, Mumbai for letting me write match reports whenever I went abroad; to Suresh Menon, former Sports Editor, Indian Express, to be able to understand me and give me the space that I needed to write freely. I am hugely thankful to others who kicked my ass, stole assignments from me, tried to ensure that I didn’t get accreditation in international tournaments — it was because of them that I could understand this world of sports journalism better.

My special thanks go to all the umpires and coaches, who have helped me understand this complex but amazingly enjoyable sport.

Finally my thanks to my family — my mother Satwant Misra, who once told me, I will never ask what you do with your life but whatever you do, do it with commitment; to my mother-in-law Dr Jagdish Kaur Sethi, who I succeeded in transforming into a hockey fan, not to forget the nights that I kept her awake, watching the Chelsea Games (today she is a diehard fan of Jose Mourinho with an unanswerable question: Why don’t we have a single hockey coach like Mourinho? Would you like to answer that one, Mr Gill?); to my wife Shireen who has been the only one to have really understood what hockey means to me. This book wouldn’t have been possible without her.

While it is evident that Indian teams have performed modestly in the last two decades, there have nevertheless been some incandescent individuals whose contribution to Indian hockey can not be ignored. Dhanraj Pillay has been the best of those. As an outstanding player of his generation, Dhanraj had most of the qualities of a champion — speed, wonderful movement and fluency, quick and deceptive stick-work, play-reading ability, courage and intense passion for the game.

Sadly, however, his life is a metaphor in the story of Indian hockey which always threatens to blossom, has brilliant moments, yet is unable to sustain the quality of performance. And Dhanraj’s career has been intimately interwoven with India’s victories and defeats in the last two decades. His failures were India’s failures and his triumphs were India’s triumphs. Unfortunately, for such a wonderful player international victories and medals were scarce.

In the early 70s, when I first played against the Indian teams, their wizardry was more than legendary — it was in-your-face, obvious, apparent. Ajitpal Singh, Merwyn Fernandes, Mohammed Shahid, Ashok Kumar were players of the highest calibre. The support cast wasn’t too bad either — Govinda, Zafar Iqbal, Bhaskaran, Surjit Singh, to name a few. However, it was a time of flux and change — while in the early 70s India had seemed unbeatable, by the 80s they seldom rose in stature.

The real decline started in Montreal when our young Aussie team defeated the reigning world champions 6-1. The score flattered us but the shock was a real dent in the confidence of the Indian team and seven days later, when they had a chance to rectify the blow, they were unable to beat us. The confidence of Indian hockey was, it seemed, permanently scarred (notwithstanding the aberration of Moscow where they triumphed in a weak competition).

Obviously it didn’t just suddenly happen but we saw it coming and once the spell was broken, the pace of decline seemed to accelerate after the 80s (I believe the 1984 team was the best Indian team I played against). Perhaps it was merely the case that India stood still, while other nations progressed faster. What surprises us most in the West is that the process hasn’t been arrested.

Sundeep Misra’s book offers some insights into why India hasn’t arrested the fall and by delving into the details of the major campaigns in the last decade or so, he outlines a dysfunctional environment in which merit, quality and performance are not always the things that are valued most. It is in this environment that we have seen mercurial performances from individuals such as Pillay. However, if international hockey requires anything to succeed, it is teamwork. The winning teams prepare extremely well, are better organised and pay greater attention to details.

In international football with its spoilt superstars, powerful club affiliations and crowded calendar of events, preparations for the world championships are brief and nowhere near as thorough as most Olympic sports are. As an outside observer, this is the most obvious deficit in the Indian teams that have challenged for high honours in the last decade-and-a-half.

When Sundeep asked me to write a foreword to his book on Dhanraj, I only knew him as a journalist who seemed passionate about this game and deeply cared about Indian hockey. This book underlines the depth of his interest and affection for the game as much as his admiration for the skills and commitment of Dhanraj Pillay.

I believe there are few in the West who have seen ‘up close’ as much international hockey over the last four decades as I have — I attended many of the tournaments covered in this book from the Sydney World Cup, 1994 through to the World Cup in Monchengladbach in 2006. Usually, the Indians have promised much. Regularly they play some terrific games but invariably they are inconsistent and disappointing.

During the last decade-and-a-half, Dhanraj Pillay has been India’s most outstanding player. There is little doubt about that. When I chose a ‘best international team’ in the last 40 years in my book, The Coach, Dhanraj was one of the three Indian players that I included in the team. I would not presume to measure him against the other two (Ajitpal and Mohammed Shahid) as they were completely different types of players, who in their own ways created havoc amongst the opposition.

However, what I can say is that the Dhanraj represented in this book is exposed as much for his flaws as for his strengths. Sundeep does not judge Dhanraj — he describes and records the hockey events that he has observed. Dhanraj was a central player in those events and as such, his foibles are revealed as are those of the Indian team, its other players and officials.

I found these insights fascinating and I believe all hockey lovers will do likewise. Of Dhanraj all that is left to say is that he will be missed. The game is the lesser with your departure.

Ric Charlesworth

(Australian hockey player)

From 1978 onwards, Ric Charlesworth was considered the best hockey player in the world for almost a decade. Apart from playing Olympics, he also captained the Australian team to a World Cup win in 1986. At the moment he is the high-performance manager for the New Zealand cricket team. He is also a doctor of medicine.

The night of 15 July 1968 was like any other night — calm and quiet with a mild hint of rain as clouds gathered in the west. For the Pillay family in Khadki, just before dawn broke, the youngest took birth. The family had to struggle to make both ends meet. For many it wasn’t a surprise that ‘Dhanraj’ (wealthy) should have been the chosen name for the youngest born in this family.

At the turn of the 70s, when Dhanraj was another rowdy boy roaming the lanes of Khadki, his friends called him ‘Dhan’ with affection. From the moment he could run, one could tell that athleticism was a gift bestowed on him. Dark, thin lips, eyes that seemed as if stretched, sharp nose angled down like a hockey stick — Dhan stood several notches above the five-feet mark; his hair brushed back into a wave, imparting a few crucial centimeters to his height. Though Dhanraj attended school, he wasn’t the ‘brilliant’ kid who could come home and finish his maths homework before going out to play. Studies were a chore; playing games was more worthwhile.

Though his father worked with the Khadki ammunition factory, maintaining a big family was a burden. Football was an affordable sport; hockey was played when Dhanraj could lay his hands on a few broken sticks and then with a few friends paste them up with gum and sutali (gunny-sack strings).

Pune was developing fast. But Khadki somehow seemed to have been caught in a time wrap. It had a population of roughly 30,000 — most of them working in the ammunition and explosives industry. It was on the Khadki ammunition factory grounds that Khadki youngsters including Dhanraj started to play hockey.

The Khadki ground was a meeting place for every boy over 10 years of age. Even those who couldn’t play would come there to chat or just spend some time cheering the more serious players.

It’s probably destiny that Nagalingam, Dhanraj’s father, never a recognised sportsman, produced four sons who had the makings of natural sportsmen. Even today when we talk about sports, we all talk about the Pillay family. Hockey was the life of Khadki. Those who didn’t play hockey were outcasts. Sports was just a diversion and we never thought that Khadki would produce a player of the stature of Dhanraj, says Jayant, a resident of Khadki. "There were times when I returned home and wanted to see some news on the television but my kids would refuse to give the remote control saying that the Indian hockey team was playing a match and that Dhanraj would be there. Dhanraj was the hero. If he is the pride of India, he is the jaan of Khadki. You should have seen the celebrations in Khadki whenever the Indian team won matches under Dhanraj’s captaincy. It was like Diwali."

His low grades in school didn’t worry the family. After all, academics were not something they were counting on. Actually, in a middle-class home, all ambitions end with a decent job and a simple marriage. Dhanraj’s mother Andalamma never thought beyond that for any of her children. That they went on to represent the country with Dhanraj becoming a legend was a dream they had never ever dreamt of.

Most of his teachers admit that he was poor in studies but a livewire when it came to sports. He was weak in studies and even today he feels sad about it, said Mrudula Deshpande. I remember he mentioned in his speech that ‘I would have reached a better place if I had studied’.

His teachers remember Dhanraj not only because he rose to international fame as a hockey player but because he endeared himself to them. Sunanda Patil, one of his teachers at Sugra Vilasi Sabha (SVS) School, fondly remembers him as a backbencher. The teachers used to scold him a lot. But he always listened to the teacher and remained quiet in front of them. One would never ever see Dhanraj replying back to any teacher. In that way, he was a perfect student.

An interesting story is narrated by one of Dhanraj’s close friends, Francis David, on how Dhanraj was initiated into serious club hockey. "His eldest brother Ramesh, whom we called Gunda, was working in Mumbai. Ramesh had sent word that Dhanraj should be sent to Mumbai. But there was another reason why Dhanraj agreed to go to Mumbai. During the Ganesh festival, Dhan had landed in a fight and fearing that the police might try and find out about the incident, he decided to escape to Mumbai. Ramesh was playing for his club team and they were falling one member short. Dhan’s name was suggested as a substitute and he played with his usual enthusiasm and got noticed by the coaches."

The big break came when Joaquim Carvalho asked him to join Mahindra & Mahindra. As usual, Dhanraj made everybody sweat before finally Carvalho issued an ultimatum to him. "By chance, I saw Dhanraj and told him ‘Abhi bhi chance de raha hun, akhri mauka hai’. He landed at the Mahindra office and after meeting the director, joined as junior assistant."

On the domestic circuit, the big break came during the 1987 Sanjay Gandhi Tournament in Delhi. Playing as a right-out, he consistently beat Rajinder, the left-half of the Namdharis’ team. His speed was a joy to watch as the locals called him ‘Toofan’. With the title as the best player of the tournament under his belt, Dhanraj was looking towards a bright future.

It was during the National Hockey Championships in New Delhi (1987) that Dhanraj met Harendra Singh. Both were young and desperate to play for India. They struck a rapport immediately and this friendship has endured. Actually, Harendra remembers seeing Dhanraj at a tournament in Imphal. He probably had the ball four or five times and every time he was either in the ‘D’ or had earned a penalty corner for his team.

At the Delhi Nationals in 1987, Dhanraj was the outside-right for Mumbai (then Bombay) while Harendra played full-back and penalty-corner converter for Delhi. Both the teams clashed in a pool match with the winner entering the quarter-finals. It was a close match, remembers Harendra. He earned a penalty corner after body feinting past me. To be honest, I was already an established name on the domestic circuit and thrice he beat me. He always pushed the ball on the left and ran in from the right. Bombay beat us 2-1 and it was then I realised that he would go a long way.

Fate and Joaquim Carvalho brought both together in the Mahindra team. We were like brothers in arms, says Harendra. A bond had been established which is alive till today. Joaquim recognised the talent in Dhanraj and it was at Mahindra & Mahindra that the lad from Khadki, who probably would have been satisfied with a job and a few Indian matches, started harbouring ambitions of playing in world hockey. Along with Marcellus Gomes and Mark Patterson, Dhanraj got a fascinating glimpse of the world of Olympic hockey. Marcellus Gomes was a member of the 1984 Olympics team while Mark Patterson was already a certainty for the Indian goalkeeper’s position. Carvalho, apart from teaching Dhanraj the finer skills, also mentally tuned him up for the bigger battles that lay ahead.

He was very raw but I could see the huge potential, says Carvalho. He was still trying to find his feet and understand where hockey could take him. One had to work on him but slowly he realised that remaining and focussing on hockey would be best.

Mahindra & Mahindra won the Bombay league without conceding a goal. In every match, Dhanraj or Harendra were on the scoring sheet. For both living together in Borivili, opening the newspapers in the morning was a joy — the headlines either had Dhanraj or Harendra’s name in the sports section.

Once Gwalior was hosting the Nationals and both Dhanraj and Harendra knew that a good show for Bombay would put them into the probables’ list for selection into the Indian team. Harendra recalls the time at Gwalior when a rumour spread among the Bombay team that coach Cedric D’Souza would only play Catholics in the first match against Karnataka. When we heard this, both Dhanraj and I became very angry and upset. Ramesh Pillay calmed us down saying that he would find out the truth. He came back and told us that it was just a rumour.

Dhanraj and Harendra played for Bombay with Dhanraj earning the maximum penalty corners in the tournament. Harendra scored 13 goals that made him an India prospect immediately.

Bombay won the Nationals with Dhanraj Pillay and Harendra Singh catching the eyes of the selectors. Both their names were on the India probables’ list. Dhanraj told Harendra, The first phase is over. We are now in the Indian camp. We need to be in the Indian team.

Dhanraj then met Carvalho who told him that getting selected for an Indian camp was just a stepping stone. This is not the final step, Carvalho said. Playing for India and for a longer period should be the priority. He also advised Dhanraj on the training imparted at such camps and that even if his coaches became angry at his mistakes he should not get worked up but concentrate on the game instead.

After the camp, Dhanraj saw his name on the Indian list for the 1989 Asia Cup. Coach Ganesh, looking at the youngster’s potential, had chosen him for the tournament to be played in New Delhi. There was joy in the Pillay household. It was a dream come true for Dhanraj and as he scanned the list looking at names like Pargat Singh, Vivek Singh, Thoiba Singh, Jagbir Singh, he felt giddy. Later, he told Harendra: It was like a panic attack, he explained. These were great players. And suddenly I would be sitting on the bench with them. For a second I thought I should run away. But it slowly dawned on me that this was my chance to show the entire world the talent that I had.

On 20 December 1989, Dhanraj made his debut against China in the second half, substituting for Ram Prakash Singh. There was no applause when the substitution was made. Dhanraj was an unknown name but at the Shivaji Stadium, among a group of knowledgeable hockey lovers, it was apparent that a budding talent had taken his