Life is full of choices and dreams. Choice comes with time and drives dreams. Life is lived only with a dream and the choice of dream is in one’s hands.
As a student of a rural government school, my early dream was to excel in class exams and when that was accomplished, to get into an affordable college. I did my postgraduation in geology at Presidency College, Chennai, and earned a postgraduate diploma from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai – top institutions in India that offered quality education at a throwaway cost – and was awestruck that my moment to earn a salary was so close.
In those days, the early 80s, economic liberation was not even talked about, and my next dream was to get a durable government job, which I accomplished after passing the UPSC’s Geologist Examination.
Having landed a secure and safe job, having made my father – who single-handedly helped me realise all my dreams – happy, I went through some domestic motions before the spark in me started sending signals.
The spark leads to a dream, the real one, which transcends the monetary necessities of life and takes you to the next level of thinking.
I started thinking about hockey, our national sport. I wondered why a sport that was truly ours, and brought us so much glory, was not in that position now. This thought process was reflected in letters to editors, and when they got published almost verbatim a new window opened for me.
Some articles and interviews opened new opportunities to meet hockey legends and present-day players but at the same time I lamented the woeful lack of records and documented history, which other sports like cricket are inundated with but are scarce in hockey.
I published Hockey Year Book in the early 90s, which struck a responsive chord in the hockey community. The information gateway opened in the mid 90s and then came websites, and the one I started became the talk of the hockey world.
There were innumerable opportunities to cover international tournaments taking place abroad that I could not utilise due to official duties and delays in getting the obnoxious No Objection Certificate.
While making significant strides in the media world, I could not bog myself down with the choice I made as an adolescent; my needs and aspirations were different. So I had to give definite shape to my new dream, of independently pursuing everything I wanted to.
There are always commitments that bind you, especially when children grow up, but a choice had to be made and I made it.
I left my executive government job 15 years before retirement was due, and chased my dream.
When I look back now I am happy I took a decision to follow my dream. I am always with hockey – as a writer, columnist, statistician, historian and, of late, founder of a trust to introduce hockey playing opportunities to those who wouldn’t otherwise have the choice.
My trust, in its fifth year, caters to the hockey urban poor in about 80 schools, spread over five major cities. My project of One Thousand Hockey Legs has been widely appreciated, and my dream of seeing hundreds of children play hockey has taken shape in front of my eyes.
My dream is my life now.