Two days from now the 2010 Men's World Cup Hockey will take place in Delhi and it is strange that despite being in India, I heard of it only two weeks ago.
It's a running joke in the media here that if you talk to an Indian about hockey, you will inevitably be met with the question: "Does India have a hockey team?"
In a country where all the sport expenditure, attention and frenzy is about cricket, there is little room for hockey to shine.
This wouldn't have been cause for distress had it not been for the fact that the national game of India is in fact hockey (not cricket) and the nation celebrates the birthday of hockey legend Dhyan Chand as its National Sports Day.
From 1928 to 1956, the Indian team dominated world hockey, winning six consecutive Olympic gold medals and a total of eight, the most number by any national team.
However, the golden years soon lost their lustre and Indian hockey faded out of people's memories.
The decline, blamed partly on the inefficiency of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and lack of funding, reached its lowest point when India failed to qualify for the Beijing Games in 2008.
The morale and passion among the players have taken a beating as there is no proper sports infrastructure, nor funding from the government, for games other than cricket.
Also, the lack of sponsors for a sport that is deemed non-lucrative meant that the players were housed in stadium dormitories.
Repeated protests went unheard and finally, with 45 days to go to the World Cup, the players went on strike demanding fair salaries.
In an effort to avoid embarrassment as the games were going to be held in India, Hockey India, which has now replaced IHF, gave in to their demands.
The media coverage of the event has been very sporadic. The World Cup received a brief mention during the days after the blast at the German Bakery in Pune, when security was upgraded.
Apart from that, it hasn't made it to the front pages.
This is in complete contrast to when the Indian cricket team topped Test Cricket rankings last December. I remember feeling indignant reading the rather cheesy headline The Times of India carried on its front page, 'Best and Brightest'.
What followed was a week of congratulatory advertisements from various companies, which took precedence over important news.
The Hockey World Cup has no official mascot, no eye-catching slogans and no big corporate houses endorsing the event.
New Zealand star player Simon Child has pulled out of the games, stating that he wasn't comfortable with the situation in India and that he wouldn't be able to play with the right mindset.
World sporting events have always been great levellers, allowing teams and individuals to break barriers of human endurance and hypocrisy.
Who can forget Jesse Owens' feat at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he clinched four gold medals and infuriated Hitler, who had wanted the event to showcase Aryan supremacy.
However, back home in the US, Owens had to race against horses for entertainment to make a living.
He later recalled that it wasn't Hitler but President Franklin D Roosevelt who had given him the cold shoulder, by not sending him even a telegram of congratulation.
My favourite sporting triumphs (though highly biased to football) have been the underdogs Greece winning the Euro Cup in 2004 and the Iraqi team winning the Asian Cup in 2007, in spite of the players' personal tragedies back home.
The thrill of winning and the solidarity in losing bring a nation together more than anything.
I remember listening to the commentator screaming "Joy to the land", when Iraq scored its winning goal at the finals.
I hope Hockey India takes note and spruces up the World Cup scene to be more lively and competitive.
By the way, the Commonwealth Games 2010, the largest multi-sport event in India till date, will take place in Delhi in October.
But has anyone heard about it?
¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here.
Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group
'Give back pride-of-place to our national sport',
Gulf Daily News, February 26, 2010, Jennifer Gnana
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