GD topic: How to promote Indian hockey?

      I am a student, waiting for a job. So on the quest to find a job, I sat in the placement process of a company. The placement process started with a Group Discussion. And luckily I got the topic on which I could have spoken for hours. HOW TO PROMOTE INDIAN HOCKEY?

      It was also a moment to find out, how much we Indians know about our national game. So the discussion started and the guy who spoke first came out with the reply I could have never imagined, “Dhanraj Pillay should be promoted as he is the best player in the current team”. I was shocked to listen at the answer, is this what we know about our national game? At this moment I had to say, “My dear friend, Dhanraj Pillay has retired from hockey”. By then it was time for some one else to pitch in, “We should have more movies like Chak De India. It was a very nice movie, and such an inspiring movie which shows the real life story of Kabir Khan”. It was another shocker for me, but thankfully some one else from the group shot back, “It was not Kabir Khan, but Mir Ranjan Negi”.
     But it was not over yet, the best part of the GD had still to come, “We should ask Yuvraj Singh to do advertisement with his father (Yograj Singh) who was a hockey player” said one. It was time I decided to take matters at hand, and came out with the points of promoting hockey (well the ones which I have read from success stories of Holland and EHL, for more read the post ‘FIH needs lesson in marketing’).
     I thought this would at least bring out some points from them, which I could include in my next post. But what I heard was this, “Do you even know the current hockey players of India?” I told that guy 13 names of current hockey players. Even this was not sufficient, “How do I know you are speaking the truth? You could be lying to us”. “I am a small time hockey hockey blogger, so I know somethings about hockey and promotion of it” was my reply. The discussion continued to 5 more minutes but I continued thinking for 2 hours after that.
     What should we do to tell our fellow countrymen about hockey. But I could not think of anything useful which would help to promote hockey. But one thing surely did click my mind, doing what traffic police does to educate about safety and traffic rules. Setting up stalls on the road and going to schools to educate people about safety and traffic rules. We should start doing same for hockey and thereby save hockey in the country.

    This is my idea of promoting hockey in the country, if you have any suggestion please write it below and may be we can come up with something constructive for Indian hockey.

(The above picture has been taken from google images. I do not own them)