This week for Hyderabond, The Pioneer interacts with Hyderabad’s very own Nandanoori
Mukesh Kumar,
an international hockey player, who takes us through the game, back
in the 90s.
SHIKHA DUGGAL
Nandanoori Mukesh Kumar is a hockey player, who’d also got married to a hockey player! They have two children. He made his international debut for the Men’s National Team in the early nineties, and has represented the country at three consecutive Summer Olympics. Mukesh represented India in 307 international matches and scored 80 goals.
The Pioneer interviewed Nandanoori Mukesh Kumar for our special weekly column because he was born in one of the major cities of the country- Hyderabad!
In a candid conversation with us, he first speaks of his goal against the Australians which seemed like an unbelievable goal. “During those times we were considered to be one of the best hockey teams. For example, Germany, Holland or Australia had only junior players in it but we had a mix of juniors and seniors, especially our Dhanraj Pillay! As soon as we reached Australia, definitely expected a gold medal! But as soon as the match started the ball was swinging outside the field, I thought to myself why waste this time.
I immediately took a dive and that unexpectedly went and became a goal. Even the goalkeeper was shocked! Australian goalkeepers are very casual when they are goalkeeping. And when the announcement came in that it’s the first Olympic record set by an Indian in 32 seconds, I was on cloud nine. We started to get published in the Australian magazines from then on.
But I never let the over confidence took over me! Like I can narrate to you an incident of this, when we were playing against Belgium and there was a three days gap and the whole team was like let’s not prepare we are already prepared, we went for an Indian embassy dinner. What happened after that? We dropped the goal! I was very unhappy with this behaviour.”
From the very initial days, he belonged to a family of hockey players, and then to represent his own country for him was nothing less than a dream. But he was very unhappy with the kind of promotional activities were done for cricket and not for hockey!
“Why is hockey not commercial in our country? Cricketers are coming in BMWs, and hockey players are coming on scooters. Isn’t it very saddening? Even though we have brought national recognition, what is the difference between us? And then when we started playing hockey, the source of money was salary but today we have endorsements and many more commercial activities going on for players.
But even then when Mohammad Azharuddin was playing he used to get paid for per match basis! So I belonged to the Sikh village in Bowenpally and there was never an international player that came from our Hyderabad city. I was fulfilling my family’s requirements only with the salary I used to get.”
His father was also a very renowned hockey player it seems! Post him whoever became a hockey player in his family was only motivated by his father because most of his relatives were working for southern railways by then. “During those days even colonies were divided. Our colony was more into hockey, if you go to Trimulgherry, they were football fanatics and if you go to Marredpally — they were more interested in baseball and cricket (he laughed).
So when I was six years old, I began practicing to become a hockey player! I was very weak in educational studies. Whenever my professor called me to read out something in either Hindi or Telugu, I used to freak out. So separating myself from this, I used to go and watch the club matches. I started training myself in the Gymkhana grounds.”
One of a senior assured him that he is going to get a proper job in the southern railways and that was the only motivation for him to pursue his studies again. He never even thought of becoming an Indian player! “We used to play with wooden hockey sticks, because today the world is advanced. We have fibre hockey sticks that generates more energy in our body as well. When I was just beginning my career in hockey, the state was ruled by NTR Rama Rao Garu.
He organised a hockey match in the Eluru stadium! But then he decided to bring all the sports together under one stadium. To play a district match there will be a selection process happening back at the hostels but I was selected without any selection process! Then I shifted to Machilipatnam for training purposes and my coach gave me a very harsh comment that “your position will be changed because you do not have that speed in you”.
I was hurt! I picked a cricket pitch and started to do 15 to 20 sprints early in the morning. Then there was the Ritz hotel, it was uphill so I used to do cycling over there! My hard work brought good colours and I was selected to represent our country from the Lucknow side.”
Looking at his performance in Lucknow, the selectors chose him for the Indian camps finally. The fitness procedures were very different from what he used to practice at Hyderabad!
“At first I was confused, will I be able to represent my country? Now, the real fitness happened for the Indian camp and I was injured because I was just not used to that kind of aggressive exercises or running. I returned to Hyderabad. But my coaches started to miss me. I went back, but saw something even more newer because I was the only person from the South, and hockey was being dominated by North Indians over there.
There are a lot of politics inside the field also to be very honest! When you are playing on the field sometimes what happens a Punjabi will give the ball to the Punjabi only, that way I was taken aback. I started to wonder now how am I going to impress the selectors who actually selected me to represent my country if they do not even give me the ball to hit a goal? Outside the field, they will do namaskaram to me but inside what was happening, only I know. Neither did I have the support of the Hyderabadi federation. So performance was the key!”
So this is how a proud Hyderabadi and an International hockey player responded to all our questions and we got some really new lessons to learn about how hockey used to be during the early 90s.
