आर्यभूमि

Dhyan Chand, a name as synonymous to hockey (field hockey), as Pele is to football, Jordan is to Basket ball or Mohammed Ali is to Boxing. A legend, who was the architect of the Golden Era of  Indian Hockey. His legacy inspired a lot of players to take up hockey as a game and make India proud. Thou during his heydays, India was not independent. The country was short of self-esteem, confidence and only politicians or revolutionaries were it's heroes. There was little room for sports. However, Dhyan Chand, born in a humble family of Prayagraj, joined British Army, and was enlisted as a sepoy (private) in 1st Brahmans, a regiment, named after communities those days. He was selected to represent British India in Olympics. It was start of an era, where India (including British India)  was a brutal force in the sport, winning 7 out of 8 Olympics Gold Medals. Dhyan Chand was terrific in the field, dribbling was such précised and controlled that it appeared that he was playing wi...

The hostel life is memorable for everyone. The freedom, the responsibility and need to standup for yourself, makes you better equipped to take on the world. I’ve been lucky to spend my last few years of studies in hostels and that too in the best ones available in India, the BIT Mesra Hostels. The abode to exuberant individuals, all amazing, different from each other. Few of my best friends are my hostel mates. The hostels in BIT gives you the feel of a glorified prison sometimes. The reason being, its distance from the city and outside world. The seclusion does helps you get along with the other prison mates well. During my stay in BIT, there were no mobile data and mobile internet. Orkut was yet to become a hit and Facebook was yet to be conceptualized. Sports, meals-together, interaction sessions, quizzes, studies, chit-chats kept us involved. Luckily, those days were less virtual. Even computer games needed physical presence of the opponents, barring some, with their networkin...

India does not have a dominating sporting history till 1980s. Apart from the Field Hockey Super Star, Major Dhyan Chand, India mostly struggled to produce real sporting icons. Cricket, which became one of the most prominent and popular sports of India, was just coming out of being a royal game, under Wadekar. But dominance was still a far fetched thought. However, the landscape of the Indian cricket was about to change. A 5'4" tall, or rather short young man, from a middle class family, came in. He went on to become the most successful Cricket Opening batsman of the history of cricket, that too, without a formidable partner at the other end. Fondly remembered as Little Master, who refused to succumb against the bias and discrimination forced on third world nations, a norm those days. He, in a way, infused the self-confidence and self-esteem in the team. The Indian teams till then, used to get dominated and being defeated unceremoniously. We, the generation now, have ...

A cold and rainy day in a hill town is scary and at the same time it is lovely. A December night, rainy and chilly, the unseasonal rain had worsen the weather. I was waiting for my college bus during a weekend, which usually departs at 8 PM from the city center to my college campus, situated in jungles outside the outskirts of the city. There were hardly six or seven of us waiting for the bus. All of them were unknown faces and mostly were workers from the neighboring village of our college campus. It was a cold day, even the known faces would have been difficult to recognize, given everyone was under the cover, masked by mufflers or monkey caps or both.  The era of smart phone zombies was yet to arrive. Forget about smart phones, even normal mobile phones were rare those days, and hence time pass at the bus stop was a little harder. So chit chat was the best time pass. While looking for the know faces, I recognized one familiar face. It took a while to realize, that a s...

The true character of a human being comes out during adversity. Human beings are as good or bad, as their characters are built. The characters cannot be build overnight. Every stage of one's life has an impact on the psyche of an individual, the environment we grow in, inculcates our behavioral and personality traits and certain characters. One of such character is how to handle defeat. Depression, arrogance, hatred, jealousy and several other negative aspects of behavior creeps in, or become visible, when we fail. This is due to lack of ability to handle failures. It further halts the progress as an individual. In real life, there are no superheroes. Superheroes are mythical or fictional. And hence, there are no one in real life, who will never face any failure. Thus, the preparation for handling failures or defeat is imperative, same as the preparation for handling success. There is an old saying, "Failure is the stepping stone to Success". Sport teaches a lot of...

Bicycle; it was a dream to own one, when I was a kid. The two wheeled, pollution-less, personal mover, has lured me more than anything, till date. The thrill of balancing the iron structure over it's narrow rubber tires, used to instill stinging sensation inside. This was all, I used to dream as a child. Howbeit, never shared this dream with my parents. Mostly, because I thought it was not needed. One of my friends, who is no more, used to visit our home during summers, riding on his bicycle. He had a troubled family, the reason he used to roam around the town entire day, only to get back to spend night at home. Summers, we used to have morning school. He used to come to my place post lunch. He was little weak in mathematics but excellent in literature. I was exactly opposite. So we complemented each other while studying together. More than boring study of literature, that he had to offer, I was more fascinated by his bicycle. My dream was to have a bicycle like he had, and p...