Thursday, March 4, 2010

Sorry, ma'am. Hockey is dead, you live

Ok so now we all know that India plays a game called Hockey. Also that it is the kind of sport that would make ‘superfit’ players like Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina – not to say the other cricketers- throw up in the first five minutes because of the sheer speed. At my office, you would almost believe hockey is our national passion. Inside the train, some college chaps were talking about how India could have played better against Australia. Of course they also added that with India beating Pakistan four-nil, our tournament is over and we have emerged victorious.

I really believe that India will never regain its hockey glory ever again. I hope I am wrong. Let me begin by telling you a small story. Nothing very dramatic.

In a large and reputed school in Jamshedpur, every Saturday groups of students assembled in a well-appointed classroom to take part in what was called ‘the School Quiz Club’.
The routine was that the moderator- a stern and strict teacher by the name Jimmy Munro- would make teams and then play quizmaster.
Jamshedpur had a fairly robust school quizzing scene and so doing well as a team at the Quiz Club meant that you got the chance to represent your school in these events and be the toast of school if you won. The ultimate of course was the Bournvita School Quiz hosted by Derek o Brien and telecast across the country. Incidentally two students from this school- Little Flower School- went on to win the Bournvita School Quiz.

Coming back to the story. As the competition on that Saturday morning started getting close, sir Munro threw in a question. Name the first Indian woman to get an Arjuna Award.

The faces of every participant in that class lit up. Now this was easy. Pat came the answer- PT Usha.

Surprise. Surprise. Wrong answer. It was my turn next. I offered this very long guess and said Shiny Abraham-Wilson. Nope as well.

Someone made a better try and threw in Diana Eduljee. Negative again.

Mr Munro took this long pause, looked at all of us. Smiled. Then dropped his heavy voice for a bit and said, “Do you all have any clue about a lady called Steffi D’Souza?”

The faces were blank. Mr Munro threw in another clue. “Steffi Sequeira?”

The class let out the kind of sigh that could have been heard a mile away. ‘Don’t tell me’, ‘come on’ ‘oh gosh’ rented the dull air in that spacious classroom.

“Ya my friends, we in this country have no idea about anything of our own”, Mr Munro said in a tone that betrayed a bit of arrogance over his white skin and Australian ancestry. Later I realised it was not arrogance, just plain hurt.

Because Mrs Sequeira for years now was our physical training teacher at Little Flower School. Clad in her trademark shirts and knee-length skirt, it was not difficult to guess that she must have done a fair bit of sports in her time.

Some physical problems had made her put on weight but the strength of a sportswoman came to the fore every time she gave us a tight one on our thighs if we made a mistake. Like what cricket commentators would say- when she hit, it stayed hit.

Across the city, young students- me included several times- called her ‘handi’ because of the massive weight that she had put on. She disliked it, sometimes got angry but the students always managed to run away before she could catch hold of any one of them.

She tried starting a hockey league in the city, ran around for it. Forget the league, Little Flower School hockey team itself never got off the ground. Some of the students felt their wrists paining, some threw up and some had the ball cracking into their shins with enough force to put them out of all work for one whole week.
We called hockey a stupid sport. Cricket is the real deal, man, we told each other.

One rainy day, when it was not possible for us to practice our physical training routine outside, we all sat in the school pavilion. Mrs Sequeira- married and having moved from native Pune to Jamshedpur- brought out a hockey stick and a shining white ball from the sports room.

Then she kept the ball on the ground and slowly started caressing the ball with the hockey stick. It was not a performance for any one of us. It was not to show who she was or what she was capable of. It was just trying to snatch a part of the world that for her had gone past.

The caress got quicker, her muscled forearms developing a grid of veins as the seconds ticked by. It must have been less that a minute later when every student sitting cross-legged in that pavilion realised that even their perfect eyesight at that age could not see anything better than the stick shivering into a brown blur and the ball looking like a whirling mass of soft white cotton.

I don’t remember if I saw any tears in her eyes that moment. But some of us had moist eyes that day. A sports legend having to bring out her skill before a set of unworthy students to tell them that in the world she once inhabited, they respected her for her skills is a very sad sight.

Steffi D’ Souza was the first woman to get an Arjuna award. And the only woman who has represented India and probably the only instance in the world of any athlete who has participated in athletics and hockey at Olympics. She captained Indian women’s hockey team for a long time and is still considered the greatest woman hockey player this nation has ever seen. She was called Flying Rani for the massive surge of speed she could generate with the ball and for her sprints.

She passed away in 1998. Hockey died in Jamshedpur and the adjoining Jharkhand towns- the cradle of Indian hockey- almost two decades before that. Ma’am, if you are looking at us from there above, please forgive us. We are sorry.

18 comments:

Unknown said...

Great work Binoo.You revisited our old mistake.A great tribute to a legend who was so closely knit into our life.

Kavitha said...

Beautiful Binoo.I completely agree with Tushar.We were never able to understand her worth. Old memories are back...and well my eyes are moist too. Sorry Mrs.Sequeira for having caused you pain!!

Anonymous said...

Wonderful piece.we never realize the worth of diamonds in our own backyard.i too studied in LFS and never put our PT teacher in any high esteem. but imagine what she had acheived. if only we all could turn back time and learnt to respect our heroes.

Vaibhav said...

Great work Binoo (with moist eyes)... Mrs.Sequeira you will be always alive in our hearts

Unknown said...

i do not know who mrs.sequiera was but ur article shook me completely..really touching..

Right-Wing-Lunatic said...

I also don't know about her. and being a sports journo it's a bit of a shame. but your piece is beautiful. it is very touching

Unknown said...

very beautifully written

The Buddha Smiles said...

It is the destiny of this nation's heroes to diappear into the oblivion unnoticed. Extremely touching. Hope somebody could do a full length feature on her some day at a national forum. Well done Binoo ......

Rudolph Menezes said...

Me being an LFS student at that time still remembers her fitness , be it in PT or hockey. Although we did not take sports seriously as she would like, we now surely feel what we missed out that time and those days will never come back. Jamshedpur/Telco gave our country a lot of big sportsmen and women but never anyone like Steffi apart from knowing her and her family as a family friend. Rudolph Menezes

Unknown said...

honestly it is the first time i have heard this name but i was an lfs student few years back and a part of the quiz club and this story simply proves that mrs sequeira was a great personality

Unknown said...

People,i can only thank y'all for remembering Mrs Steffie Sequeira so fondly.I was an LFS student under her and, shamefully, ignorant of her celebrity. All of us were.:-((

How lucky we were to have her as our PT teacher, something we were clueless of till shamefully recently. Better late than never, I salute a humble celebrity who took joy in training young students and expected nothing in return.

Unknown said...

People,i can only thank y'all for remembering Mrs Steffie Sequeira so fondly.I was an LFS student under her and, shamefully, ignorant of her celebrity. All of us were.:-((

How lucky we were to have her as our PT teacher, something we were clueless of till shamefully recently. Better late than never, I salute a humble celebrity who took joy in training young students and expected nothing in return.

Unknown said...

People,i can only thank y'all for remembering Mrs Steffie Sequeira so fondly.I was an LFS student under her and, shamefully, ignorant of her celebrity. All of us were.:-((

How lucky we were to have her as our PT teacher, something we were clueless of till shamefully recently. Better late than never, I salute a humble celebrity who took joy in training young students and expected nothing in return.

Unknown said...

People,i can only thank y'all for remembering Mrs Steffie Sequeira so fondly.I was an LFS student under her and, shamefully, ignorant of her celebrity. All of us were.:-((

How lucky we were to have her as our PT teacher, something we were clueless of till shamefully recently. Better late than never, I salute a humble celebrity who took joy in training young students and expected nothing in return.

Unknown said...

Oops, sorry for the repeat posts.

Unknown said...

Oops, sorry for the repeat posts.

Kaushik77 said...

Hi Binoo, I just came across your blog. Such a wonderful tribute to Mrs Sequeira! I was participating in a sports quiz at COEP Pune couple of years back and there was this question about her. I felt so proud....she was our teacher! During our school days we never understood the magnitude of her accomplishments. I guess you would recollect her frustration the day she entered class with all the medals that she had won. Probably at our age we never realised the value of an being an Arjuna Awardee..... being an Indian Team Captain....Representing India at the Olympics. Being a sport fanatic I always wished I could go back and apologize to her for the way in which we used to treat her. Alas, she left us too soon! Thanks Binoo for bringing back all those memories! SORRY MA'AM! WE ARE SO VERY PROUD OF BEING YOUR STUDENTS AT LFS!

Krishna Raj said...

Thank U Binoo for sharing the information Many of the alumni of LFS wouldn't have known the facts about Mrs Steffie Sequeira. It's a proud feeling to know and be a student of hers. THANK YOU