The third-edition of Playwrite, Sports Literature Festival of India here witnessed scintillating sports discussions by veterans and youth alike amidst an enthusiastic gathering of sports lovers.
The first session named Olympic Dreams was kick-started by one of the founders of Playwrite - Vivek Atray, a former IAS officer, a motivational speaker and author. The session featured the star behind Aamir Khan’s movie Dangal, Babita Kumari Phogat, a renowned female wrestler, who won the gold medal in 2014 Commonwealth Games.
While narrating the stories of her childhood to a packed audience, Phogat remarked that hadn’t it for her strict father, she wouldn’t have become who she is and perhaps, been confined to the four-walls of the home as a shy girl.
“Dangal movie wasn’t an exaggeration. In fact, in reality, I and my sisters weren’t even allowed to attend family weddings by my stringent father, if they came in between our trainings. We had nowhere to escape to, when your own father is your coach,” said Phogat.
Reminiscing her past further, she also mentioned how she would often ask her mother as to why her life’s made so difficult by father. “My mother would just reply, “bas 2 saal aur” (wait for just two more years). This continued until I reached the place where my father wanted me to.”
Babita also talked about how people in her own village would taunt her and her sisters for wearing shorts and playing amongst the boys. “However, in such times, my father would just say – ‘You just do the hard work, leave everything else on me’”.
The next session called ‘The Business of Sports” was conducted by Chitranjan Agarwal, co-founder of Playwrite and featured Joy Bhattacharjya, a famous sports quizmaster and a part of IPL’s Kolkata Knight Riders since 2008.
The third session called ‘Hockey: The 70s Show!’ saw the participation of hockey legends like Ajit Pal Singh and Ashok Kumar (son of Late Padma Bhushan, Major Dhyan Chand).
The session was hosted by senior journalist Prabhjot Paul Singh. The event had a surprise guest the great Hockey Legend – Balbir Singh Sr, who managed to make it even when he has not been keeping well since long now. Ashok Kumar and Ajit Pal Singh were both part of the Indian team that won the 1975 Kuala Lumpur World Cup – the last Gold that Indian hockey team ever won.
Citing some of the reasons where Indian hockey team failed in repeating the success story of 1975, both the veterans pointed to the introduction of Astro-turf, which our players and including our authorities were not familiar with at all.
