National Sports Day

India celebrates National Sports Day on 29th August, every year. What is so special about that date, you may wonder. Did any big cricketing event happen? No, this date is not related to cricket. It is the birthdate of India's greatest hockey captain, Major Dhyan Chand. Who is Dhyan Chand and what achievement of significance does he hold that his birthday is celebrated as the National Sports Day?

Before we start, I just want to remind the readers that, according to a statement released by the Sports Ministry last year, India does not have a national sport. Shocked? So, why is there such a popular misconception that hockey is our national sport? There is a pretty great story behind it, and I want to share that with you.

Major Dhyan Chand, originally named Dhyan Singh, was born on 29th August 1905. He joined the army at the mere age of seventeen. Dhyan Singh, with his paltry salary of 12 rupees a month, bought a hockey ball. He used broken branches as sticks and played hockey under the moonlight. Having seen this, his seniors started to call him Dhyan Chand. From these humble beginnings, began the golden era of Indian hockey.

In the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, India defeated all their opponents by a huge margin, not letting them score even a single score. That team went on to win the first-ever Gold Medal for India in the Olympics. Dhyan Chand was the top scorer in that tournament. He was called a magician and was renowned for his dribbling skills. His skills were so good that there were tests conducted to check whether he had hidden a magnet inside his stick!

India dominated hockey in the 1932 Olympics as well. They created a world record by scoring 24 goals in a single match against the USA, a record that stood for seventy-one years! The team won their third Gold Medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics against Germany. People all around the world were in awe of Dhyan Chand's skills. Cricket legend, Don Bradman, said that Chand scored goals like runs were scored in cricket. German dictator, Adolf Hitler, was so impressed with Chand that he even offered him a position in the German army, which Chand politely refused. Despite all his achievements, which included playing more than four hundred international medals and playing barefoot during the Olympics, India never treated Dhyan Chand like the hero he is.

Though his story had a sad ending, the God of Hockey, definitely left behind a legacy. We can honour his memory by realising that the reason India does not have a national sport is because that we have so many diverse cultures and peoples. One single sport cannot possibly encompass all the different sentiments. We need to recognise the efforts of every single sportsman and sportswoman who pour their blood, sweat and tears into winning various laurels for the country. On that note, I would like to conclude by saying, Chak de! India.