`Arjuna Award panel has lots of soul searching to do’

Damania’s disquiet revolves around the continued ignoring of lightning left-outer and former India skipper Nazleen Madraswalla nee Namrata Shah, a Maharashtra stalwart now coaching schoolchildren in Pune.

Left-half Omana Kumari, a gold medal winning member of the Indian team at the New Delhi Asian Games in 1982, received the Arjuna Award for women’s hockey in New Delhi on Wednesday — fully deserved according to Damania, but ill timed.

“I agree that Omana should have received the Award years ago,” Damania affirms. But what ranklesDamania is the continued overlooking of Omana’s team-mate at the Delhi Asiad and a subsequent India skipper — a player recommended for the prestigious Award twice in the last 10 years. Namrata, 36, coaches St Joseph’s School (Pashan), influencing her wards with sublime skills that made her “Asia’s fastest forward” in days gone by.

“We have got our priorities wrong somewhere. The Arjuna Award panel have a lot of soul searching to do,” Damania questions its fairness.

A member of the Federation de Internationale (FIH) technical delegation at scores of tournaments the world over, Damania, even while rejoicing over the honour bestowed upon centre-forward Pritam Thakran, is sore that just a lone member of the India’s silver medal-winning side at the Bangkok Asian Games last December had been selected.

“What about our defence, the goalkeeper and half-backs? Our girls put in an excellent display before going down to South Korea in the final,” Damania asserts.

Her sympathy extends to Maharaj KishenKaushik, who guided the men’s team at Bangkok to the gold medal after 32 years in the wilderness. And not merely because the former India right-winger actually moulded the Indian women’s team in the mid-nineties.

Kaushik, who scored a goal in India’s thrilling 4-3 win over Spain in the Moscow final, has been caught in a time warp of sorts. The former Mumbai right-winger received the Arjuna Award with players of the team he coached to the gold medal at the last Asiad when, instead, a Dronacharya Award would have been a fitting honour.

If such vicissitudes plague men’s hockey, it should come as no surprise that the women’s game remains a “have not” according to Damania .

“We are second-class citizens, make no mistake,” she regrets as she mopes over handicaps that women’s hockey in India faces — that compares unfavourably with Argentina and the United States where women’s hockey enjoys far more patronage and fortune than the men’s game. Or the Netherlands, world superpowers, where women and men standon equal footing.

But clutching at the straws in the hope of a Renaissance, Damania hopes for more attention to the needs of Indian women’s hockey — coaches in adequate numbers, physical and psychological trainers, employment and not least, money.

“Let not our girls’ heroic achievement at Bangkok go in vain,” she pleads.