In the 59th edition of TOI's weekly roundup from Chandigarh, Mohali, and Panchkula, Chandigarh loses Flying Sikh Milkha Singh and his wife, Nirmal Milkha Singh, to Covid-19 in quick succession. Milkha Singh won 77 of his 80 races but about the heartbreak at Rome Olympics in 1960, the legendary sprinter had said: “It’s a pain that will go only with my life.” There, 0.1 seconds cost him a 400-metres medal but that national record of 45.6 stood for four decades. After his three golds at the Tokyo Asiad and CWG in 1958, India waited 52 years for the next. Snatched by Covid-19, the Flying Sikh, his life the stuff of movies, died in Chandigarh with the last wish to see an Indian runner win an Olympic medal. Born in a Sikh family of Punjab’s Govindpura village, now in Pakistan, he saw his parents and a few of 15 siblings being killed in the Partition riots of 1947. But he escaped to Delhi and, later, would recall: “In my life I cried only thrice. Once was during that massacre (second after Rome and third while watching his biopic).” Milkha Singh had once refused to travel to Pakistan — the country that made him ‘The Flying Sikh’ in 1960. His declining the Arjuna forced a new awards policy but he was in two minds and the back story is that his wife, Nirmal Milkha, eased his dilemma. Moved deeply by his biopic after watching it in the US, former American sprinter and Olympic champion Carl Lewis had found Milkha’s Chandigarh number and dropped him an unexpected call. Even at 91, Milkha was enthusiastic about golf and was a regular at Chandigarh's Jeev Milkha Singh tournament dedicated to his Padma Shri son. In the 1980s, it was Milkha's summer ritual to visit Kashmir for daily rounds of golf with Farooq Abdullah. If he missed it, the chief minister would ring him up. From Dronacharya awardee athletics coach Mohinder Singh Dhillon, whom Milkha Singh denied a gold medal once as a chief guest observer, to the legend's Olympic room mate, Brigadier (retd) Labh Singh, many remembered The Flying Sikh fondly. For your TOI copy, call us at this number: 1800 121 0005. Please, like, share, and subscribe, and get vaccinated. Milkha Singh had promised to take the shot after recovery.