Talk with an official

On Saturday, I went to meet a Hockey professional, who happens to be a good friend of mine.

An entirely personal visit it was supposed to be. (I didn’t know that I will be keen to write about it, after coming back.)

But, towards the end, as I was about to leave, my friend took me to certain officials and introduced me to them. He went to tell them that I am doing voluntary work for the development of Hockey.

Although I had no intentions of meeting the officials but here I was presenting what “One Thousand Hockey Legs” project is all about.

Here comes to the most interesting part:As I told that we recently concluded a Summer Camp in Pondicherry, an official (let’s call them Official 1) asked another one (let’s call them Official 2), “Do you know about it?”

Apparently, Official 2 is from Pondicherry.

Here’s the boomer.

Official 2 immediately starts off, goes on and on leaving no stones unturned telling Official 1 how we have:

1) Ignored Government schools from our schemes of things.

2) Taken help of non-technical people to run the show in Pondicherry.Official 1 was smart enough to correct Official 2, “Your approach is not the best one. They are doing voluntary work. You should first appreciate their work. Then you should sit with them and talk to them conveying things that you both can work upon. If you behave this way, they will not get back to you at all.”

I tried giving assurances like, “You can call me. We can discuss later.”

But no assurance, no counter argument could stop Official 2.May be they were looking for some brownie points with the other officials.

Anyhow, that doesn’t matter.

The answer, to those questions, from my side:

1) We do have 2 Government schools with us. To get the Government schools to tie up with us, we need to go through Director (Education). Our proposal was put to them, back in December.

2) Hockey is being taught by Hockey coaches.Honestly speaking, I got a taste (may be, very little) of what Hockey administration is about.

Later on, during a discussion, a close friend of mine, a Hockey professional, shared a few words of wisdom, “Be careful. Submissiveness is not humility, here.”

Friedrich Nietzsche quotes,

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."