The Race of My Life (18 page)

In 2001, the Bharatiya Janata Party government offered me the Arjuna Award, almost forty years after I had received the more prestigious Padma Shri in 1958. When the award was introduced in 1961, its premise was very clear—that it would only be granted to those outstanding sportspeople who had received medals in international events, including the Olympic, Asian and Commonwealth games.

When I looked at the list I discovered that it included even team members for games which have no global presence like kabbadi, which is played in just four countries. I brought this and other examples of unworthy candidates to the notice of the then minister of sports, Uma Bharati, and told her that I considered it a farce to be included in the same list of nominees who have not even represented their country. It was as if the Arjunas had been given away like prasad, to any and everybody, ignoring those who truly deserve them.

I firmly refused the award because the selection committee had ignored the fundamental premise on which it was founded, and that by giving me the award at this stage it did not recognize ‘the stature of the services I had rendered to the nation’. If her government had wanted to give me an award, why didn’t they separate my name from the general list, and announce that they were honouring me with a lifetime achievement award? Moreover, why has it taken so long for my achievements to be acknowledged and recognized? After all, I had received a Padma Shri at the height of my career, when I was ‘Asia’s Best Athlete’ and the ’Nation’s Pride’. My refusal made headline news, but as far as I was concerned, if the government had wanted to offer me an Arjuna, why did it take them forty years?

Besides the Padma Shri, my other awards included the Helms World Trophy for the best athlete in the world presented by the United States of America in 1959, and the Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi Award in 1997. Such awards and decorations play a major role in boosting a sportsman’s morale, they bring fame and immortalize a person’s name, but unfortunately very few of them bring great financial benefits. In the early years of the Arjuna Award, sportspeople received a sum of money, but few benefits, unlike today when awardees are entitled to railway passes, discounted airfares, petrol and gas agencies, among others.

I have always been a strong advocate for the cause of continuing official patronage for prominent sportspeople when they retire. Most sportspeople come from indigent, uneducated backgrounds, whose parents neither had the means nor the influence to develop their child’s potential. But what differentiated these children from the rest was their hunger and drive to develop their abilities and succeed.

But what happens when they retire? They have no family money or assets to fall back on, and their brief careers have not provided them with a secure future; they receive no benefits or any monetary gain, and once they leave the field, they are forgotten. There have been so many tragic stories of sportspeople, even Arjuna awardees and gold medallists, who have died in abject poverty, including Dhyan Chand and Trilok Singh. I have often suggested to the government that they should introduce some schemes that will help sportspeople when they retire—give them jobs, a regular pension and other benefits. The more prominent ones can be appointed to sports bodies, or even as state governors. Such incentives will encourage the aspiring youth to choose sports as a career.

Another reason why sports standards are declining is that over the last few decades, cricket has overshadowed every other sport in India. Open any newspaper, put on the television, and what first grabs a person’s attention are the screaming headlines and images of star cricketers in action. No other sport gets the kind of exaggerated coverage that cricket does. Besides, there’s a constant cycle of cricket—test matches, one-dayers, IPL and what not—taking place throughout the year, so many events that there seems to be very little respite between one match and the next. Compelling images, swashbuckling exploits, glamorous lifestyles, and most important, the money are the lures that attract young children towards the game.

Just a handful of youngsters are interested in any other sport. Even if a sportsperson wins or breaks a record in any other game, be it athletics, hockey, boxing, wrestling, shooting, tennis or badminton, attention will focus on them for only a short while. For example, our medallists at the 2012 London Olympics, including Saina Nehwal, Sushil Kumar, M.C. Mary Kom, were greatly fêted for their successes when they returned, but then the attention was back to cricket once again. I think the media should help encourage other sports in every possible way.

A vital ingredient to promote a product, a film, a book or a sport is publicity, which is why cricket has become such a dominant sport today. When my first autobiography was released in Punjabi in the mid-1970s, I had hundreds of fans, children and adults alike, coming up to me, saying that they wanted to be Milkha Singh. I would then put them in the training programme, but after four or five days they would abscond because they could not cope with the gruelling routine. I would ask, ‘Do you think that to become Milkha Singh is a joke? A sleight of hand? No, to be Milkha Singh, you need courage and conviction, as well a goal to aspire towards.’ And for me, that goal always was to excel in running. Otherwise, would I have practised so relentlessly?

Some years ago, I donated my medals, trophies and other sports memorabilia to the NIS, Patiala, and Delhi’s National Stadium, while the spiked shoes I wore to run the 1960 Rome Olympics was donated by me for a charity auction organized by actor Rahul Bose’s NGO, The Foundation. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who made the film on my early life and running days—
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
—bought the shoes for twenty-four lakhs rupees.

Life has given me much more than I hoped for, however, I have one remaining desire: to see an Indian runner win back the Olympic medal that slipped away from my hand on that fateful day in Rome.

Epilogue

I am neither a writer nor an author, but a sportsman with passion, who has poured his heart out in this book. Although I am not a man of words, I hope this book can inspire the youth to take up sports and strive to excel.

I am proud of the fact I am a self-made man. My philosophy is very simple: ‘The lines on our palms do not decide our future,
kambakht
, we, too, have a say in it.’ Hard work can change destiny as I know only too well—my entire life has been dedicated to it. My early years were a struggle, but as I gradually started to achieve results, my name and fame grew. I won competitions and medals, except for the elusive Olympic gold, which I will always regret, and yet I have always been content because I kept trying.

My final words would be: life as a sportsperson is hard, and there will certainly be times when you might be tempted to quit, or take shortcuts—but remember there are no shortcuts to success. At such times you should try and derive inspiration from this Urdu couplet:

Mita de apni hasti ko agar koi martaba chahe,
ki dana khak may mil kar gul-e-gulzar hota hai

Destroy your entire existence if you want to reach the
zenith,

’Cos a seed has to become one with the dust to sprout
and blossom into a flower.

Keeping fit, 1958