Asked to coach by Dhyan Chand, he is still doing it, at 81

Karve stays alone nearby, he hasn’t married. He says he loved the game so much that he feared he wouldn’t be able to sustain a family. And coaching?

“I was suggested by Manna Singh and Dhyan Chand that I should take up coaching and I just followed them. They told me that I will be a good coach. In fact, Manna Singh was a coach when he called me to Delhi to give me a certificate for coaching so that I could and promote it in Gujarat. But it remained just a dream as I didn’t have enough money. Much later, I got the news that Manna Singh had died during the first India-Pakistan war. Both of them always supported me and appreciated my work,” says Karve.

State captain from 1968-1971, Karve recalls seeing Dhyan Chand in action at Ahmedabad’s Nagarwala Hockey Stadium. “It was the first time after Independence that Ahmedabad was hosting an international match. Things have changed so much. If you go to that stadium in Shahi Bagh now, you’ll see the change. A common man now can’t go and play there, even the goalposts have been removed,” he says, tears welling up.

Gujarat may have never been much of a team to watch out for but Karve claims he has produced hundreds of national-level players, many of them women. “I remember Veena Shah, Kishore Patel and Kritida Patel, who have already represented India. But to remember every student who has reached there is difficult at this age. I don’t remember the year exactly for various things, I have never written it down. All I know now is that I was just one when my parents had died and my brother looked after me.”

Born at Alibagh, a village near Mumbai, Karve has been coaching since 1945 and is affiliated with Gujarat College since 1946 — here, they simply call him mama.

Having worked with Ahmedabad-Sarangpur Mills as head mechanic, Karve meets his daily needs with his Provident Fund. “I don’t get a single penny from the university but still I keep doing my work as I just want to be with the sport. Sadly, the government is also not interested in supporting the game. When I used to play, there were 16 teams but now there are hardly one or two. In fact, the Ahmedabad Police team used to be the one of the best teams but it doesn’t exist now.”

Why? “Look at this,” he says, pointing to the uneven pot-holed ground which was used as a parking lot recently during a government function on Shaheed Diwas.

“I requested the officials not to park their vehicle inside my playing arena but none of them listened to me. They said that they had orders from higher authorities,” he said. Over 60 years as a coach and Karve says he is still going strong: he currently has 50 students. He even wants to see Chak De India, the hockey movie starring Shah Rukh Khan. He will be here as long as he can, he says. Just then, one of his students walks up, touches his feet, saying “Jai Sri Kishan Mama Ji.”