The sports fraternity of India celebrated National Sports Day last week on 29th August – a date chosen to mark the birth anniversary of Major Dhyan Chand, field hockey's finest. A lot of events took place commemorating the occasion, including the giving away of the national sports awards at the Indian President's abode.
Also read: Dhyan Chand: 10 interesting facts
The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award (the highest honour for an Indian athlete), Arjuna Award (excellence shown by an athlete), Dronacharya Award (excellence in sports coaching), Dhyanchand Award (lifetime achievement award) and Sports Development Award titled ‘Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar’ – with categories such as nurturing the young talent, providing financial assistance, establishment and management of sports facilities, academies, employment and welfare measures for sports persons – were all handed out on 29th August.
The legend of the four hands with four sticks
Major Dhyan Chand's son Ashok Kumar once remarked – "My father became more popular after his death." And that popularity has led to many urban legends surrounding this hockey great.
One such popular myth happens to be the statue of the hockey wizard in Vienna, Austria.
Let me put forth some background information here. Sometime in the late 90’s, in a quiz forum there was a question about an athlete and his statue with four hands and four hockey sticks being erected by the residents of Vienna. The answer was Major Dhyan Chand. That was the most popular guess and it has been a popular trivia question for a long time.
In fact, this legend spread to such a great extent that a lot of media houses mention this news whenever they write about Major Dhyan Chand.
But when I was researching for sports quizzes, my efforts to find a picture were in vain. After a good number of years, my patience finally ran out and I began to wonder if this story has any merit. If it were true, why isn’t a single photograph of this available on Google, or at least the address of this statue?
I began to wonder why no Indian tourists or other global hockey enthusiasts have ever discovered this statue. Surely, a statue of this nature had to be interesting and deserves a photograph!
The hard truth – there’s no statue in Vienna
While the search for this picture or the location was on, I realised that the best way to get to the bottom of this matter was to ask the management at the Austrian Hockey Federation directly.
I have a decent understanding of the German language and this helped me make the first contact with the concerned authorities responsible for the sport hockey in Austria.
In one sentence they wrote back to me, “Nein, die Geschichte stimmt nicht. Es gibt keine Statue in Österreich,” which translates to – “No, the story is not true. There is no such statue in Austria.” This was in response to me asking if they had ever come across a statue of Major Dhyan Chand with four hands and four hockey sticks.
A case of wishful thinking?
Honestly, I would have loved it if the answer was the other way around. However, the sheen on Dhyan Chand's exploits is not diminished an iota by the mere absence of a statue; it is after all just a symbol and nothing else.
The legend of this story continues even today and I saw it appear on many websites and newspaper last week. Thomm Quackenbush quotes in his book We Shadows – "The seed of an urban legend finds fertile soil at the corner of tragedy and imagination."
Major Dhyan Chand remains a genius, and such an exaggeration of a statue with four hands and four sticks appears to be more poetic rather than practical, as there is no proof of its existence.
Major Dhyan Chand passed away in the year 1979, one year before India won its eighth Olympic gold medal in field hockey. Since then, the Indian team has been a pale shadow of the glory years and to some extent have resembled a tragedy when compared with their illustrious past.
This particular piece of information does not find a mention in Major Dhyan Chand's autobiography 'Goal' published in 1952 – and never once in his lifetime was there a mention of it. I hope in the near future we get more information surrounding the 'Vienna statue' and the origins of it.
Until that time it is safe to say that the story of the statue is nothing but a 'myth'.
