Mumtaz Khan of India Women’s team in action against Wales during Junior Hockey WC (Image: HI)
Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) April 4 (ANI):
India stunned Germany in the Junior World Cup Hockey pool match after doughty Mumtaz Khan’s powerful drag-flick sent the ball crashing into the nets to send the girls in blue in frenzied celebrations while joys of her mother, Qaiser Jahan, who sells vegetables in Lucknow, knew no bounds.
Mumtaz Khan, 19, is now India’s new hockey sensation, taking her team to the top league while her dribble and powerplay with her stick awing the opponents.
Lucknow, the city of Nawabs and also hockey-lovers, is showering love and appreciation on Mumtaz’s family, which ekes out a livelihood as vegetable vendor.
With the hockey stick, Mumtaz Khan is not only shattering India’s powerful opponents, but also the age-old patriarchal taboos. Her mother is jubilant that Mumtaz Khan, one of her six daughters, has given a resounding slap to all those who taunted her in the past for having only daughters.
“People often made remarks that I only have daughters. Mumtaz has made us proud, and broke the social stigmas,” said Qaiser Jahan, while speaking to ANI at her vegetable shop in Lucknow.
My daughter is equal to 100 sons, said Qaiser Jahan.
While Qaiser Jahan managers to earn Rs 300 daily, she went beyond her means to support Mumtaz Khan pursue her dreams to wear the blue jersey and represent India on astroturf.
The financial strain proved insufficient for Mumtaz Khan to fly with the girls in blue to South Africa to play for the country.
Mumtaz Khan along with other under-19 Indian girls in blue is taking the team to newer heights, with a quarter-final berth sealed. Besides beating the formidable Germany by converting the penalty shoot, Mumtaz Khan had also taken India to an unassailable lead with a 3-1 scoreline with a brilliant field goal in the 41st minute against Wales in the FIH Women’s Junior World Cup at Potchefstroom in South Africa. India finally won the match 5-1.
Her father Hafiz Khan, a vegetable vendor, has all been supportive of Mumtaz Khan’s passion for hockey.
Mumtaz Khan’s journey as a hockey player began when she went to Agra to participate in a race and was spotted by Neelam Siddiqui who trained her at KD Singh Babu Stadium’s Sports Hostel.
“I feel very proud that my daughter is playing for the country. We are getting a lot of respect because of her,” said Mumtaz’s mother.
“I feel proud that my sister is an international hockey player. Despite poverty, our parents have raised us to make us capable to do something for ourselves,” said Farha Khan, Mumtaz’s sister. (ANI)
This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
source: http://www.theprint.in / The Print / Home> India / by ANI / April 04th, 2022
SM Jaffar was one of India’s finest hockey players in an era when the country reached near invincibility in the sport.
In the warm southern California summer of 1932, a group of young and colourfully-dressed athletes caught the attention of the residents of the Olympic host city. Angeleños, as the residents of Los Angeles were called at that time, had been expecting to see exotic looking foreigners, but even so, it would have been hard for many of them to not take a second look at turbaned Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus from faraway India.
Accounts from diaries from the 1930s suggest that one 20-year-old with his trademark moustache and turban caught the attention of both athletes and fans. This hockey player from Shergarh, in what was then the Montgomery district of western Punjab, was one of the rising stars of the Indian hockey team: Sayed Mohammed Jaffar Shah (SM Jaffar), who played the left-out (forward) position.
Like his teammates, who undertook the 42-day journey by ship from Colombo to California, SM Jaffar could have easily been distracted by the attractions that Hollywood offered, but his focus on the hockey was unwavering. “This charming athlete from India, this sheikh from the deserts of Montgomery, this man who carried with him something of an atmosphere of vast extensive plains and cornfields and open air wherever he went, attracted many admirers,” writer Syed Ahmed Shah, better known as Patras Bokhari, wrote in an essay in the 1930s. “But this stranger with a manly moustache had the modesty of a village virgin that was both fascinating and forbidding.” SM Jaffar was Bokhari’s student at the Government College in Lahore.
Jaffar had a reputation of being a disciplinarian to the core. He even eschewed coffee, as his only attempt at drinking the beverage resulted in the loss of an entire night of sleep. “Myriads were the temptations in the way of a young man so far away from his mother and his father and his friends and dear ones at home,” Jaffar was quoted as saying by Bokhari.
The hockey player, who was a hawking and hunting enthusiast and a regular patron of Amritsar’s hawk sellers, chose to spend his free time in Los Angeles visiting the zoo and the city’s lion farm.
It was a foregone conclusion that the Indian team, which won the gold medal in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, would crush the only two opponents – the Unites States and Japan. Like the ongoing Tokyo Olympics, which have lost their sheen because of the global pandemic, the Los Angeles games had reduced participation on account of the Great Depression. Only 37 nations participated in the 1932 Olympics, compared to 46 in Amsterdam four years earlier. The Indian team, divided by groupism between Anglo-Indians and others (the captaincy went to Lal Shah Bokhari), beat the United States 24-1 and Japan 11-1 to win the gold.
“I have had the privilege of seeing many cuttings from American newspapers and I can say without the least fear of contradiction that no other player was more popular, more skilful and more highly praised than Jaffar, with perhaps the solitary exception of Dhyan Chand,” Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah, who was Jaffar’s teacher at Lahore’s Aitchison College, wrote in 1937.
Shah, who would later become the principal of the prestigious Lahore institution, added, “…and what was true at Los Angeles, was equally true at the time of the Olympic Games in Berlin.”
Dhyan Chand runs away with the ball in an Olympic contest. Credit: Wikimedia Commons [Public Domain]
Road To Berlin
After returning to Lahore, Jaffar immersed himself in his studies. He completed his degree and was appointed Extra Assistant Commissioner of Lahore and even took the Indian Police Competitive Examination. His hockey career also continued to flourish. By 1936, he was the captain of the Punjab hockey team at the inter-provincial hockey tournament in Calcutta.
The tournament, won by host Bengal, was used as a selection criterion for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In a country which had several strong hockey sides such as Bengal, Bombay, Bhopal and Manavdar, just two players from Punjab were selected – Jaffar and Gurcharan Singh. Despite a request from the hockey authorities, the Indian Army initially refused to grant superstar Ali Iqtidar Shah Dara leave to play for the national side.
When it was time to select the captain of the Indian team, there were three candidates: Dhyan Chand, Jaffar and Manavdar’s MN Masood. “The IHF [Indian Hockey Federation] met at Delhi sometime in April to select the captain and officials of the tour,” Dhyan Chand wrote in his 1952 autobiography. “For the office of the captain, three names were put up – Jaffar, MN Masood and myself. Jaffar subsequently withdrew in my favour.”
It is widely accepted that the 1936 Indian team was the greatest to ever take the field in the history of the sport. Two-time defending champions, they were the favourites to win the gold, but the German side was a formidable opponent.
1936 :: Indian Hockey Team That Won Gold Medal In Berlin Olympics .
In Final, India Defeated Germany 8-1
In Tournament India Scored 38 Goals , Dhyan Chand Scored 13 Goals and His Younger Brother Roop Singh Scored 9 Goals
9:49 PM – Aug 1, 2021
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Panic seized the Indian team when they lost a warm-up game to the Germans by a score of 4 to 1. Dhyan Chand and Jaffar requested the army to release Dara for the tournament, and the legend was flown in to Germany a day before the semi-final. Till that point, India had little trouble in the tournament, easily defeating Japan, Hungary and the United States. The champions then crushed France 10-0 in the semis.
The final between India and Germany was witnessed by 40,000 spectators , most of them cheering for the home side.
India had some supporters in the stand too, including members of the Baroda and Bhopal royal families as well as some Indians who lived on the continent. The clinical performance of the Indian team, which won 8-1, threw the theory of Aryan Supremacy to the bottom of the Spree River that runs through the centre of Berlin. In a match where Dhyan Chand scored three goals, Dara added two and Jaffar contributed to the tally with a solitary goal. India could have easily scored more, but Dhyan Chand decided to give the “rough” Germans a “lesson in ball control” and the Indian team toyed with their opponents, moving the ball around endlessly.
“During the tour, he was a very great asset to the team, both on and off the field, and was highly praised by the German press,” Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah wrote about Jaffar. “…He was Dhyan Chand’s right hand man and extremely useful in maintaining the morale of the team.”
The Olympic gold in hockey would stay in the subcontinent until 1972, with India winning gold in 1948, 1952, 1956 and 1964 and Pakistan doing so in 1960 and 1968.
A Tragic End
Unlike Olympic legends, Dhyan Chand and Ali Dara, SM Jaffar, who was at the peak of his athletic abilities in the mid-1930s, would not live to see the departure of the British from the subcontinent.
On the morning of March 21, 1937, Jaffar, an avid hunting enthusiast, went on a duck shoot with his friends on the banks of the Ravi River, near Lahore. The Olympian waded into the river to retrieve a duck that his dog was unable to get. Unknown to the party, the duck fell near a whirlpool in waist-deep water. Jaffar was sucked in, and his boots got caught in the reeds in the water. Despite being a skilled swimmer, he could not set himself free. The two-time Olympic gold medallist drowned in front of his friends in the Ravi. He was 25.
“It is too painful for me to recall here the incident of his most tragic death, which has deprived us of a brilliant ‘Old Boy’ of whom we were all unreservedly proud; no institution will mourn the death of Jaffar more than Aitchison College, of whose products he was the finest example,” Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah wrote.
SM Jaffar is remembered as an all-time hockey great in Pakistan. As a tribute to his contribution to hockey, Aitchison College constructed a hockey pavilion in 1939. The Ali Institute of Education in Lahore organises an annual hockey tournament in his name. In India, however, his name is known only among the diehard hockey fans of a much older and dying generation. Perhaps a celebration of the legacy of such common heroes of the subcontinent would act as a catalyst for better relations between the South Asian countries?
Ajay Kamalakaran is a writer and independent journalist, based in Mumbai. He is a Kalpalata Fellow for History & Heritage Writings for 2021.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Remembering History / by Ajay Kamalakaran / August 06th, 2021
Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI / Ghazibad District (U.P) :
Hockey Olympian Zafar Iqbal on how his life has unfolded, from being the son of an academician to his days spent on the golf course today
The general impression of a hockey player in India is that of a talented sportsperson from the hinterland, modestly educated, and fighting poverty and lack of resources in the stuggle to reach the top. Zafar Iqbal breaks the mould in more ways than one.
The former Executive Director (Properties and Facilities) with the erstwhile Indian Airlines is one of the few in the sport to have managed a life outside hockey post-retirement. He credits his parents and upbringing for helping him get the balance right all through, in his articulate, but gentle manner.
“My father never stopped me from playing sports, but he was quite strict when it came to studies as well. He knew there was fame and popularity in sport; money, not so much, and so wanted us to be self-sufficient enough to manage our lives even after our sporting days were over. I am glad I listened to him,” says the 63-year old, who says he has worked enough in his life to be able to sit back and enjoy retirement.
How the world knows him
One half of the famous Shahid-Zafar pair that tormented teams’ defences for years, the talented left winger would set up the legendary Mohammed Shahid for his stylish goals. They needed little or no communication to know exactly what needed to be done.
The subtle stickwork, though, was always backed with a strong understanding of physics, thanks to his degree in civil engineering from Aligarh Muslim University and an even stronger realisation that the sport would always be his passion, but not something that would help him lead a life of comfort in the long run.
A resident of Vaishali in Ghaziabad – he moved to the house once he had retired – Iqbal’s major commitment through the day now is to golf. “I started learning golf a few years before retiring and I am still not satisfied with my game. I wake up around 4.30 in the morning and from 5.15 to almost 11.30-12, I am at the golf course. It’s the best part of my day,” he says, laughing.
As the son of Prof. Shahbuddin, dean of the science department at Aligarh Muslim University, Iqbal did not lack resources or an atmosphere of learning at home. Today, he’s surrounded by books on history that he enjoys, and has read the texts of all the major religions, including the four Vedas.
Having made his national debut in 1977, and getting his degree in 1978 – the same year he joined Indian Airlines – he was finally free to pursue hockey full-time. “That was also at my father’s insistence. I had job offers from the Indian Railways and Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board, but he advised me to join the airlines, saying that I might not get immediate rewards but would surely be successful in the future. I realised he was right when I was finally appointed ED,” Iqbal recalls.
Players off the field
He talks about how he tried to push his teammates as well to have a life outside the sport. “I used to tell them to continue with their studies and office work after active sports, because not everyone can be a coach or administrator for life. Unfortunately, there were many, much bigger players who could not rise to a senior post. I told them it might be tough initially, but office work is no rocket science. Also, as players we are used to quick decisions on field, so it is easier for us to make the switch. They didn’t listen to me, though,” he rues.
It was in 1977 that he moved to Delhi and decided to make it his home. “For me, coming from a small town like Aligarh, Delhi was this huge, fast place where everything was big and far. In AMU everything was available at your doorstep; here, I had to travel 16 km by bus, every day, from the Indian Airlines Colony in Vasant Vihar for training at the stadium. But when I see it now, I feel it was so laid-back then,” he exclaims.
It wasn’t just the distance that awed the 22-year-old. His training camps with Indian Airlines at the National Stadium were equally overwhelming. “Players like Ashok Kumar, Aslam Sher Khan, B.P. Govinda – whose photographs we kept in our rooms and pockets – were suddenly our teammates. Inam-ur-Rehman, my idol, was the coach. He was a disciplinarian, treating everyone equally, regardless of his achievements on the field. That helped inculcate respect for the game and discipline on the field,” Iqbal admits.
The presence of other sportspeople also helped. The National Stadium, he explains, used to be a multipurpose venue with a track for athletics and no turf in the main arena. It had the likes of the legendary athlete Sriram Singh training there. “The hockey field was on the left and cricket on the right, with Bishan Singh Bedi and many more practising. It was all open and we used to interact,” he says.
Old ways
Empty roads, few vehicles, no paranoia about hygienic food or water, the absence of pollution – the Delhi he remembers is restricted to nostalgia now. Even the most secure areas of the city – in and around Parliament, which he had to cross to reach National Stadium – had easy access, including Race Course Road, which he recalls used to be open to the public back then.
“I sometimes wonder what progress we have actually made. Everyone seems to be running all the time and everyone is addicted to mobiles. We seem to have become breathing mechanical bodies,” he says.
The discipline of a sportsperson, though, continues to guide his life. Iqbal is a member of two golf courses in NCR – Army Golf Club and the Noida Golf Course – but also visits the one at Hindon. On a week-long break to Chennai to visit his son, Yasir, an assistant professor of physics at IIT, he still managed to find people who would help him play his daily round, at the Cosmopolitan Club. He hasn’t the same luck in Mumbai though, when he visits his daughter, Samia, who moved to the city for her work as a copywriter.
For the rest, he is happy to accompany wife Fauzia (who also retired from the commercial department of what was Vayudoot and consequently Air India) around or spend time occasionally with his friends.
As a member of the governing body of the Sports Authority of India, as well as consultant with the University Grants Commission in the sports curriculum committee, he has stayed in touch with sports administration, pushing the agenda of games as an essential part of the development of a person.
As a former India coach (1993-94), selector (over three tenures), and government observer for many years, he has given back to the sport that helped him become an Olympic champion. But in his pursuit of golfing excellence, Zafar Iqbal continues to live a sporting life.
This ends our 10-part series on former sportspeople who are based in Delhi.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Delhi – Now & Then / by Uthra Ganesan / September 04th, 2019
Great memories: Olympian hockey player Inam ur Rehman | Mujeeb Faruqui
We came from a modest background and my father (Abdur Rahim Siddiqui) was a religious, honest, disciplined and upright man. I got the virtues of devoutness, honesty and truthfulness from him and they have stood me in good stead. I would like to narrate an incident from my early playing days as an example. I was playing for East Bengal in 1963. A night before we were scheduled to play a crucial match against arch rivals Mohun Bagan, which was the top club then, I was called to the home of the Mohun Bagan president Dhiren Dey, the owner of Dey’s Medicals.
I was offered a Rolex to not score the next day. I said: ‘Dada, you keep the watch and if a goal is to be scored tomorrow, I will score it.’ As it turned out, I scored and East Bengal went on to become champions that season. This incident later became public and brought all the Bhopal players a lot of respect in Bengal. I played 10 years in Bengal, though I joined Mohun Bagan the next year at higher wages.
I was instrumental in Mohun Bagan winning all four major national tournaments in 1964. As a result, I was called up to the 1964 Olympic trial camp. During the camp in Jalandhar, Ashwini Kumar, the president of the Indian Hockey Federation, offered me a job with the Punjab Police (Kumar was a senior cop) though I was still only a student. But, keeping in mind the focus on education in my family—my siblings studied till doctorate level—I refused as I was not yet a graduate.
Kumar was unhappy and this resulted in me not being selected in the Olympic side despite being highly rated and performing outstandingly against Olympics host Japan the previous year. There was also the historic reason of Bhopali players migrating to, and doing well for, Pakistan. The resultant negative sentiment further hampered my chance of making it to the 1964 team.
In retrospect, I feel that my decision to refuse Kumar’s offer turned out to be a historic blunder not only for me, but for all Bhopal hockey players. He had made me an irresistible offer that would have allowed me to continue my studies. I was also offered an attendant to take care of all my needs, but naive as I was, I simply decided to say no. Had I said yes, the negative sentiment against Bhopal players may have reduced and many more talented Bhopal players would have found places in international and Olympic tournaments.
I was included in the Mexico 1968 camp and this time, luckily, our coach was dada Dhyan Chand. I was dropped again, but Dhyan Chand refused to sign the team list unless I was selected. Thus, a Bhopali made it to the Olympic squad after 20 years. But, I was not fielded in any of the initial matches. Then there came a crucial match against Japan, which we had to win to get into the semi-final and I was included in the team given my record against them.
The Japanese team walked off to protest a penalty stroke awarded to us after I was pushed down, and were disqualified. The movements by me that could have led to goals were then calculated and we were awarded five goals. I was not fielded in the semifinal and the Indian team lost to Australia. Then for the bronze medal, I played again and we easily beat Germany (2-0). Pakistan won gold; we were far better than Pakistan and would have easily beaten them had we reached the finals. I later joined Indian Airlines and formed its first team by drafting in seven boys from Bhopal. I captained the team for many years and it became one of the top teams in India.
As told to Sravani Sarkar
source: http://www.theweek.in / The Week / Home> The Week / by Inam Ur Rehman – as told to Sravani Sarkar / July 18th, 2021
