Hockey: ‘I am happy that the book has got a good response from fans’

Later,Punjab State Sports Council also ordered 44 copies of the book for their offices. With young students in the schools getting a chance to read the book,I am sure many of them would take up the sport in schools,” shared Saroya while talking with Sportline.

Saroya,who started following Indian hockey in 1966 after watching India win the Asian Hockey Championship,has since been collecting and keeping information on the eight-time Olympic gold medal winning Indian hockey team. The writer launched his book last year and travelled to places like Dehradun,Lucknow,Amritsar,Jalandhar and Delhi in search of the surviving hockey players.

“As a student,studying at Udaipur in the 1960s,I was always fascinated with hockey and wanted to do something for the game. Later,I joined Punjab Public Service Commission and due to job constraints,I could not devote much time to the book. But I kept travelling and meeting the surviving members of the Olympic winning teams. The period from 1987 and 2001 was devoted in collecting the information and photographs for the book,and once I retired in 2001,the main work on the book started,” shares Saroya,who retired as General Manager from PEPSU Road Transport Corporation.

From hockey legend Dhyan Chand’s family to triple Olympic Gold medalist Balbir Singh Senior,Saroya put together a directory on 20 players- a first in India.

“The journey has taken me to meet some of the best athletes which India have produced. In 1992,I met 1948 Olympics gold medal winner Trilochan Singh Bawa at his Chandigarh residence and suddenly,he put a whole sack of photographs and articles from his store room in front of me. ‘I have no use for them. Take them to show them to the young hockey players’ he said at that point of time.”

“Similarly,after failing to meet 1952 Olympics gold medallist Dharam Singh for almost a decade,I got an opportunity to meet him and he gave me an interview for a whole day,” shares the writer.