Hail Milkha Singh: A tribute to the "Flying Sikh"

Milkha Singh (second from right), competing in the heats at the 1960 Rome Olympics

The first time I ever saw this gentleman was in a documentary on a black-and-white television during the early days of the box in India. There he was running effortlessly on the screen, unkempt and intense, his brilliance obvious even if the image wasn’t. Incidentally around the same time, it also transpired that I chanced upon the idiom “as rare as a diamond, as classy as a pearl.” Somehow the association was immediate and since then, every time I confront a thought of Milkha Singh, an eclectic collection of diamonds and pearls start racing around each other in a halo of kaleidoscopic brilliance in my mind’s eye.

It has been over five decades since the Flying Sikh made a soaring entry into athletic limelight. But after all these years, it is still the spirited Sardar who remains the most abiding and definitive memory of athletic excellence for Indians. Generation upon generation of athletes have endeavoured to emulate the great man, only to come up short in their quest. Normally used to being in the news during the Olympic years, Milkha has been dealing with an unusual spurt in attention coinciding with the release of a film based on his story.

For a man who hasn’t seen a Hindi movie since the 1960s, he has done brilliantly well to get through the whirlwind routine of standing by the team that has made a movie on the life of the greatest Indian runner. The story apparently brought tears to the eyes of the 77-year-old veteran, who was very impressed with the effort of Farhan Akhtar. The 39-year-old actor survived a gruelling 18-month training program to shape himself into a silhouette that could resemble the great man.

Even with the aid of foreign coaches, better nutrition and training facilities, the best 400m time by an Indian is a meagre 0.12 seconds better than the time set by Milkha Singh over 50 years ago. The mark was achieved by K M Binu at the Athens Olympics, but it wasn’t even enough to get him past the heats. All those years back in Rome, Milkha rose like a gladiator to finish second in his first and second round heats, improving his time on each occasion.

Milkha saved his best for the finals, but unfortunately he ran out of steam after the first 250 metres. He was running a 400m race and he burnt too much energy racing toe-to-toe with Malcolm Spence till the bend. Milkha was comfortably overtaken by Otis Davis and Carl Kaufmann on the final stretch, even as Spence denied the distraught Indian by a brutal 1/10th of a second. It took a while to interpret the photo finish, but the spent 25-year-old athlete already knew his fate.

The trauma of that defeat has haunted the emotional man ever since that unforgettable race – one in which the first four men ran better than the existing record at the time. But that was barely any consolation for a man who ran with intensity and passion for much of his life. Trauma though, wasn’t entirely new for the orphaned young man.

Born on 8 October 1935 in Lyallpur, situated in current day Pakistan, Singh walked 20 km every day to reach his school, crossing two streams along the way. The world turned upside down for 12-year-old Milkha when he witnessed the death of his parents and relatives in a partition-related massacre. Milkha lived in the same blood splattered shirt carrying the blood of his parents for nearly two weeks before slipping away by hiding alongside dead bodies on a train to India

Four years and three failed attempts later, Milkha joined the army. As a recruit at the 1 EME Centre in Secunderabad, Milkha decided to participate in a cross-country race. It was a decision that would alter his life forever. The young man finished an impressive sixth from a 500-strong field, catching the eye of Havaldar Gurudev Singh. Supported by Brigadier George Abraham and mentored by Gurudev, Milkha embraced pain and toil, often racing against metre gauge trains around the city of Secunderabad.

Not only was Milkha a great runner, he was also a commendable human being with a heart to match his running skills. He gave away each of his prized possessions for display at museums across the country. It is his treasured dream that an Indian wins an Olympic medal in athletics before his departure to another heavenly abode. The Chandigarh resident also gave away his final souvenir when he shared his Rome Olympics sneakers for a good cause run by model and actor Rahul Bose.

In a country of our size it hurts that the legend is still waiting for an elusive medal performance by an Indian athlete at the Olympics. A rare few have come close – Gurbachan Singh Randhawa (1964), Shri Ram Singh (1976), P. T. Usha (1984) and Anju George (2004) – only to fall flat in the finals. Of course, on another painful Olympic night, Usha had come agonisingly close just like Milkha, only to finish fourth in the finals.

Milkha Singh (R) promoting the film ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’

Milkha established himself as the premier athlete of a nation in the throes of development, with his success at the Asian Games (gold medals in Tokyo and Jakarta) and a much-celebrated gold medal in the Commonwealth Games of 1958. But what earned him the sobriquet of his life that stuck to him ever since, was an action-packed day in Pakistan. The reluctant Milkha was urged by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to race Abdul Khaliq, one of the best sprinters in all of Asia.

Once past the Wagah border, Milkha raced against Khaliq to impress beyond words. A stunned General Ayub Khan remarked that Milkha did not run but he flew, giving birth to a name that is now synonymous with the legend – Flying Sikh. It is often recalled that Milkha was so impressive against Abdul that he left nearly 20,000 women raising their Hijab to witness the wonderful athlete.

With Singh nearly 78 years old now, time isn’t entirely on his side. It is just as well that the director and producers of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag have gone out of their way to share an authentic story that promises to excite and inspire young boys and girls to work harder in their pursuit of excellence. Milkha was overcome with emotion upon watching the film, generously appreciating the work done by actor Farhan Akhtar.

“Farhan has played the part so well, he is almost a duplicate copy of Milkha Singh from every angle. He made me cry,” said the 77-year-old runner while attending the premier of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag in central London last week.

“India is falling behind today in the field of athletics. That is the reason I wanted this story told so that the coming generation can know about Milkha Singh and all the hard work and sweat that goes into athletics. My hope now is that the gold medal that slipped from my grip in the Rome Olympics, can be won by them in my lifetime,” he went on.

Let us hope that the well-told story of this dedicated and passionate athlete rings in the hearts of even more young people who can lift themselves to attain international glory for the country.