August 24, 1998

Hockey here is more than just a passion, it's the passport to employment.

By Ruben Banerjee

Sikajore in Orissa's Sundergarh district is an unlikely place for a hockey match. The field being atop a hillock, one goalkeeper cannot see the other goalkeeper as both are on either side of the slopes. Yet 5,000 people turn up to watch and every match is contested with the vigour usually reserved for a World Cup final. For the tribals of Sundergarh in the state's backyard, hockey is everything. And nothing drives them more than the challenge of devouring the trophy -- a goat that is tied on the sidelines bleating in fright.

Sport finds its purest expression when it is at its most primitive, untouched by modernity, uncorrupted by greed. Throughout Sundergarh, the poor, illiterate and mostly unemployed tribals just don't tire of winning and feasting on goats. Few wield a proper hockey stick -- the men sport heavily taped sticks bent with old age, children use tree branches curved naturally for the task. Bare feet are considered more comfortable than any designer shoes with spikes, and shin guards simply don't exist. The turf is usually more appropriate for grazing cows for dribbling. Still, from the moment they learn to walk, children of Sundergarh start picking up the fundamentals of hockey. "It's a case of eating hockey, sleeping hockey and drinking hockey," remarks Akshay Kumar Choudhury, secretary of the Sundergarh District Hockey Association.

It is a collective craze that has yielded impressive results. Last year when Orissa won the Girls' National Games championship, the entire squad comprised tribal girls from Sundergarh. It was hardly an aberration. In 1997, the state won the national sub-junior boys championship. In 1998 they did it again -- every player, except one, was a Sundergarh boy.

If Punjab was once India's hockey factory, then Sundergarh is gradually assuming a similar reputation. Two of India's most promising faces -- Dilip Tirkey and Lazarus Barla -- carry the Sundergarh stamp. The women's squad is equally represented; this year Jyoti Suneeta Kula and Mukta Khalko are in the team. Says Sylvester Topno, an experienced coach: "Sundergarh has arrived on the scene as a centre for excellence in hockey."

But this fascination for the game is not merely a perpetuation of a tradition set by the missionaries. It is also an economic escape. In a region married to poverty, hockey is a passport to employment. Scouts searching for hungry talent just buy a train ticket to Sundergarh. Already the powerful Railways team includes nine tribals; other teams like Indian Airlines and Bengal have adopted them as well. Ironically, this outflow of talent explains why Orissa has never made it to the top of the National Men's championship.

Still, hope here is the hockey stick. Bahamani, a young tribal girl from Tileikani, points to the turf at her school, the Birsa Munda Vidayapeeth, and says, "My future, if at all, lies in hockey." Most others at this co-educational institute which routinely wins the girls' and boys' junior national championships echo her refrain. Ranjit Minz, a 10th standard student, spends only an hour with his books; on the hockey field after five hours he's still not ready to go home.

"The emphasis on hockey is understandable since the game is the tribals' lifeline here," explains Choudhury. With village hockey a study in indisciplined passion, there has been some effort to groom talent. The Rourkela Steel Plant runs an academy. More comprehensive is the hockey learning centre in Panposh, complete with astroturf, set up by the state directorate. Despite an odd rule that says students must leave the centre after finishing Class X, it is a privileged place. During talent searches, 1,500 young players turn up at each zone (the district is carved into 12 zones) to vie for the 70 seats available. As Pratap Satpathy, secretary of the Orissa Hockey Association, says, "Raw talent is in plenty, it has to be cut and polished." Could they be the jewels that India's faded hockey crown requires?

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