My quest for the prestigious Dhyanchand Award was going on for the last eight to ten years. My disciples were making efforts in a campaign mode to realise my dream of winning this award. I was a little bit disappointed not to get it in the past but I never gave up my hope and efforts. What gave me confidence was the fact that apart from winning coveted trophies such as Bharat Kesari and Rustam-e-Hind, I had bagged silver in Commonwealth Games (Christchurch) in 1974 and bronze medal in Asian Games in 1970.
Four years later, I was fully prepared for the Tehran Asian Games, but I couldn’t participate in that because of my sickness. I am of the view that this prestigious award (Dhyanchand Award) is very important for me.
I worked in the Indian Army for 30 years. I lived in Assam, Jaipur, Jabalpur, Nagaland, and Amritsar during my posting. My posting in Amritsar was quite a memorable one. I succeeded in winning medals in several competitions at national and international levels during this posting. Numerous times, I used to give practice lessons to aspiring youngsters in the akharas, taking leave from my duty. I also got an opportunity to go abroad to participate in many competitions on behalf of the army. Those days, Captain Chandroop, Ustad of Delhi’s Azadpur based akhara, was my guru, and becoming an international level wrestler goes to his credit. He used to allow me to have food with him on many occasions. He would give me a massage too. He would go outside and bring the things I needed from there. When he turned infirm due to old age, I would give training to the young wrestlers of the akhara. If he were alive I would have put this award in his lap.
What pains me today is that the efforts of wrestlers that were seen earlier are missing nowadays. The hard work that wrestlers of that time and I used to do in akharas, is hardly seen nowadays.
People might say that contemporary wrestlers are getting so many Olympic medals, and in earlier times wrestlers were not getting medals like them. In my view, the reason for this is that the level and standard of wrestling have gone down not only in India but all over the world. And the benefit of this has gone to the Indian wrestlers. I hope that our wrestlers will win more medals in the future. This is my strong desire that the government should give me land for akhara where I can give free coaching to children and prepare top wrestlers from there. It’s a fact that I am no longer active like before due to cardiac problems. But I want to impart coaching to the younger generation with the help of some wrestlers.
So many children come to me today. I prepare their diet chart and training schedule. Occasionally, I go to the akharas at Faridabad where wrestlers give me a lot of respect. Now I feel that my responsibility towards the country has increased manifold after winning the Dhyanchand Award. Unfortunately, nobody at the government level made use of my services during the last 20 years.
The writer has been recommended for Dhyanchand Award. He is a medalist of CWG and Asian Games.
