The Right Step

09/04/2009

We need to concentrate on hockey at the school level. To put some perspective, when I passed out from school, there used to be football and hockey grounds to play. Within the past five years, the available playground size shrunk to the size of a basketball court.

Five years further down the line, there will not be space to play even the pebble game 'staapu' in some schools. Naturally, cricket takes over because it is more practical to play galli cricket than galli hockey.

Today, a typical housing society building in the cities has approximately 15 floors, with almost 4 flats on each floor, for a total of 60 households per building. Each flat has two kids on an average, for a total of 120 kids per buidling.

How many building societies have earmarked even 120 square feet for kids to play? And when some open space gets available, parking area for cars takes priority over play area for the kids.

At times, I give up hope for our kids. The idea of hockey for today's kids is to, at best, watch it indoors on television, rather than going out and trying to become a Dhanraj or a Pargat.


Note: Mr. Praduman Singh Soi is from Indian Navy, lives in Delhi. He put out this story by login this site. We in the OTHL shares the same sentiment as that of him. We request Mr.Soi to be associated with us so that we can do something at school level where grounds are there. Please stay in touch with us sir, we are in fact looking for a volunteer in Delhi.