A hockey champion and village kids

Jatwara: ‘Oskar, Oskar’ they would cry, trying to get his attention so that he would pass the ball to one of them. ‘Oskar’ here is Oskar Deecke, former Germany hockey player who was a member of the country’s 2012 London Olympic gold medal winning team.

On Monday, Oskar was playing the game with some children from a village called Jatwara, near Mahua which is about 120 kms from Jaipur on the Agra-Jaipur highway. He might have played on the best surfaces in the world but here he was having fun on a hard ground with stones all over and the children were ecstatic.

Oskar is on a visit to Hockey Village India, the brainchild of Andrea Thumshirn, who herself used to play hockey back in Germany but has been in India for the past five years. S

he teaches the children from Career Academy in Jatwara English in the morning and 2 PM onwards it is hockey time. Girls and boys from the nearby Garh Himmat Singh village also come and play.

“This is my fifteenth visit to India. You know how popular the game is here and so many tournaments keep happening here.

After the Olympics, I was chosen by the Delhi Waveriders. I was the first pick and scored the first goal in the 2013 season,” Oskar told TOI on Monday.

So, what brings him to this village? How has his experience been?

“It was great. This is the first time I am experiencing the rural conditions and circumstances. It’s something new and I really enjoyed playing with the kids. It’s great to see how happy they are playing on a sand ground. You would not do it in Germany. To know who these children are and what they are going to do in such simple condition, it’s amazing. You can read about things but it is when you visit a place, you know what it is about. I wanted to see the Hockey village,” Oskar added.

After retiring from the game last year, Oskar started working with a the German multinational conglomerate thyssenkrupp. The Indian operation of the company is supportive of Hockey Village India.

So after multiple trips, has he picked up any Hindi words? “Thik hain, chak de, pani puri, pakori. The rest I forgot, your language is difficult”.