The exuberant liberation in hefting n’ swinging your arm; sweating away your energy and pushing away at all your restraints is what I’ve always liked about sports. Well I guess at the end of the day, most Pakistanis do. For us, cricket is our fantastical reality? After all, it is the unifying force in a rather fragmented nation that we reside in. However, is cricket the only definition of sports in Pakistan? After all, our national game is supposed to be Hockey. I find that a bit strange because cricket has all that it needs to be called the ‘national game’. We supposedly live and breathe cricket but hockey somehow manages to retain the honor of being the national game. Only to get it straight as a bamboo stick, you can’t really honor something unless some tangible measures are taken in its regard!
Quite recently, I visited Italy and came across an Italian newspaper. After numerous attempts at understanding what the paper was highlighting, I found out that there was a general outcry over a Real Madrid veteran not being given a proper farewell on his transfer to another club. Wow! One such instance and all the newspapers go berserk! In hindsight, I realize he clearly must have meant that much to his fans.
In our nation, if we start reporting on instances of players being mistreated and talents being wasted, we would have nothing else to report on. Forget political parties’ verbal abuse and oral verbose! There is no denying that we have immense talents, but after brief flings, they all vanish in thin air. Poof! Be it Hasan Raza debuting at 14 years of age or Nasim Hamid’s winning gold at the Asian games: it was merely a one night stand. Their talent never vanquished, rather it is the negligence on part of sporting institutions to channel this talent in a way to increase the overall life span on the field for these players. Forget the lowly and the downtrodden, just think of our legends. Did Saqlain, the inventor of the doosra, receive the respect he deserved? Did Shah the boxer get the appreciation he earned had he been boxing in any other part of the world?
Also, quite unfortunately though perhaps not surprisingly, a number of our hockey greats are living out their days in poverty. The purpose of sports as a tool to alleviate poverty has thus ceased to exist. More so, tons of players never even get the spotlight! This issue has persisted for far too long. One could blame the government, the private sector and even the veterans. Indeed, it has become a part of our intrinsic nature to blame someone else for our wrongdoings, even though it never serves a purpose.
Flipping the coin, we have indeed seen attempts by veterans to strengthen the sports at the grass roots level. On my flight home, I came across this article on how a particular hockey player took the initiative and established an academy in his hometown to nurture the youth and channel their skills in the best interest of Pakistan hockey. He did this without a penny from the PHF or any other similar institution. His passion drove him through formidable years, but passion alone is no match for the status quo set hard in its ways. All the passion in the world can be sapped if you refuse to support or even acknowledge someone’s efforts, year on year. Eventually, the years piled on and the veteran had had enough: he just could not afford to maintain and run an entire academy solely based on self-funding. If I may, his passion did not ‘cease to exist’ the same passion with which he herded his enthusiastic lambs one day at a time, year after year after year it was the circumstance and the unworthiness of institutions like the Sports Board and PHF who chose to remain ignorant and centred on their own so-called ‘plans’ for reviving the national sport. Pakistan has already missed the opportunity to qualify for the Rio Olympics, and currently it seems that our self-destructive streak continues, and we may end up missing the 2020 Olympics as well.
It is about time that we, as a nation, decide whether we even want hockey as our national sport any more. If yes, then the PHF needs to realize that the game embodies the hopes and passions of millions, because after all it is through successful campaigns in sports like hockey and cricket that we Pakistanis are able to excavate bits of happiness.
– Hassan Ahmed is a freelance writer.
