The first time I heard the identify Milkha was as a six-year-old after I was visiting my maternal grandparents’ house at Dinanagar, a metropolis well-known for its mango gardens of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh period. We had been visiting a mango backyard and a pal of certainly one of my elder cousins joined us operating from his faculty to the backyard. “Milkhe, jaldi a ke amb apne ghar de ayi,” my cousin would say as he paid the cash. Later that night, as ‘Milkha’ would inform us on him being named after the legendary Indian athlete Milkha Singh as he liked operating, I might get to know concerning the legend.
As I grew up, I might typically examine Milkha Singh’s views on Indian athletics and his feats and would lengthy to satisfy him some day. In my school days at Jalandhar, my mates from the college quiz workforce and I might typically attempt to bear in mind his data and trivia about him by studying previous newspaper articles from the library in our school. It was these classes which led us to examine Milkha Singh’s rise on the earth of athletics regardless of dropping his household throughout the Partition and Singh’s struggles in his life. But by no means in my life did I feel I might have an opportunity to satisfy the legend.
Months after becoming a member of the sports activities bureau of The Indian Express at Chandigarh in 2007, I bought an opportunity to talk with Milkha sir for the primary time. It was concerning his views concerning the state of Indian athletics and Singh would inform me after the telephone dialog, “Beta, eh khabar all India edition ch lagai,” and would say after a pause, “Eh na sochi ki I want more publicity. Meri photos mere time ch pure world ch padian san. All I want is that my views should reach every kid of this country so that anybody could become a Milkha with hard work, willpower and discipline.”
Some days later, Singh would host the media at Chandigarh Golf Club to get us meet his coach and former Indian overseas coach Dr Arthur Howard. While the then 78-year-old Singh would meet the then 91-year-old Howard like a baby, it might be the primary time that I listened intimately about his close to miss within the remaining of the 400m race in 1960 Rome Olympics and his prior title win within the 400m race within the 1958 Commonwealth Games at Cardiff.
“At Cardiff, Dr Howard sat with me all night a day before the final and kept telling me, ‘Milkha, tum Malcom Spence ko race main maarta (defeat him). He kept telling me that I have to run the first 300 m of the race at a swift pace since Malcom ran the last 50-100m with a burst. So we have to make him catch. At Rome, I started at a pace and if Dr Howard was there to help me strategise the race, the medal was of India,” Singh would say.
While the next months would see us calling Singh for his views forward of the Beijing Olympics, one other shock awaited me within the late night of November 17, 2008. A day after his son Jeev Milkha Singh gained the Barclays Open in Singapore and with me having no data of Singh arriving in India in these uncommon social media web sites period, I referred to as Singh’s house landline to take his views for a narrative. As I used to be about to finish the decision, he would inform me, “Jeev has returned after winning the Singapore Open and you should talk with Jeev.” I talked to Jeev for greater than 20 minutes and wrote an interview with the golfer. It made me find out how Milkha sir took delight in Jeev’s achievements.
In 2013, previous to the discharge of the film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, I travelled to Delhi for an Idea Exchange with the legend. It was a time when Singh’s spouse had undergone a knee operation. As I reached their house in Gurgaon, Milkhaji would inform Nirmal that he wanted to go to honour an earlier dedication, and Kaur nodded her approval. The subsequent 4 hours had been spent travelling with Singh and after the media interplay, he headed to Delhi Golf Course to play a full spherical of golf within the scorching warmth of June!
The final 14 years have seen us listening to Singh’s tales, seeing him play golf at Chandigarh Golf Club and doing many extra issues. One particular second, which I bear in mind was the Milkha couple following Jeev by the 18 holes throughout the Jeev Invitational Challenge tournaments at any time when Jeev hosted and performed within the match aside from the couple celebrating their grandson Harjai Milkha Singh profitable a junior match in 2017. “Sports make one disciplined and respect others. That’s what Jeev has done all his career and even if Harjai does not want to pursue sports in future, it would teach him to be disciplined,” Singh would say.
A day after Singh’s dying on Friday night time final week, my seven-year-old son learn tales about him and informed me as we had been watching the film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag on TV, “Milkha sir won 77 out of 80 races in his career.”
“No, he did not win races. He won hearts,” I believed to myself.