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| India’s first women captain Arjinder Kaur at the exhibition |
Whenever we talk about Indian hockey history, we always talk about men players and their exploits of winning eight Olympics Gold, or Dhyan Chand scoring more than 1000 goals, Balbir Singh scoring 5 goals in an Olympics finals but we have never heard of Indian women hockey players and many of us don’t even know who Arjinder Kaur, Eliza Nelson or Rajbir Kaur.
Sports league expert and historian Sunil Kalra along with Kuldeep Ahlawat is doing the same more than 7000 kms from Delhi, at Lee Valley Hockey Stadium’s fan centre where Women Hockey World Cup is currently being played.
Sunil Kalra who is also a CEO of Pro Wrestling League is in Lee Valley Hockey Centre showcasing 50 rare pictures of Indian women hockey of last 5 decades.
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| A treat for fans |
The photo exhibition organized by Sunil Kalra, CEO of Pro Wrestling League, a sports historian and Kuldeep Ahlawat an IT consultant and a huge Indian sports fan under the aegis of National Hockey Museum UK includes the photographs of first Indian captain Arjinder Kaur (1974), India’s Gold medal victory in 1982 Asian Games and has photos from Padma Shri given to skipper Selma D’Silva in 1991.
The exhibition will be inaugurated by Arjinder Kaur who is currently settled in UK. Before the start of the exhibition we reached out to both Sunil Kalra and Kuldeep Ahlawat on preparation for the exhibition.
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| The Hockey Museum helping in getting the exhibition ready |
‘Hockey has always been a passion of mine, apart from organizing Sports League, I also have done photo exhibitions of 24 rare pictures of Indian hockey in 2010 and written multiple books on sports. I always wanted to do something about for women hockey and worked towards getting these pictures and it is brilliant that I will be able to showcase them in England coinciding with Women Hockey World Cup which will be played there.’ said Sunil Kalra
Kuldeep Ahlawat added on-‘ It was very difficult to get a slot in the exhibition, England Hockey always planned ahead, and the slots were booked nearly 2 years before the tournament but when we gave them a presentation, they were really impressed by our work and they gave us a green light just few days before the event and we are so happy to be here. We have worked day and night for this and we hope hockey community and the Indian community will come in numbers to watch our exhibition.’
When asked them about how many people you expect to visit to get a glimpse of Indian women hockey, Kuldeep said- ‘nearly 500 people are coming, and they are asking for tickets for India’s matches in the World Cup, but it is completely booked so we are going to be at fan zone to watch the match.’
OUR TAKE
As an Indian hockey fan, we don’t know much about Indian women hockey and the photo exhibition gives a great chance for hockey fans around the world to see the history of Indian women hockey. We urge every hockey fan to visit the fan centre at Lee Valley Hockey Stadium to travel down the memory lane of Indian women hockey.
(We will keep on updating the post as we find more pictures of the event)
