Farewell, ‘Chairman’ Bala

Hockey in India is all about men, just like most other team sports. The little support and fanfare there is in this sport, is reserved for men. Women hockey players rarely get the recognition they deserve during their playing days and are easily forgotten once they retire.

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It did not come as a surprise thus that not many outside the hockey circles knew of former India captain Shashi Bala before the news of her demise in a road accident near Jalandhar last Sunday. In the hockey world, she was a star in her own right. A talented player who represented India for over 10 years, she also coached one of the most successful women’s teams on the national circuit — Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Kapurthala.

Friends and contemporaries remember her as a mild-mannered person who, despite her stature, stayed humble. And for her many trainees, she was a helpful friend whom they could always depend on.

Even in her younger days, when she would quietly sit among friends, with one leg over the other, she had a stately aura about her. It got her the nickname “Chairman”. 

“We would sit for an idle chat and tea, and she would sit there with one leg over the other, not talking much. She was a joyful person but not very talkative. And she was humble. She would look like she was presiding over a meeting and we would tease her, ‘Are you the chairman of this meeting?’So we started calling her Chairman,” recalls Bala’s India teammate Sukhjit Shammi. “Both of us played as right-half for our teams but when we played together, I would move to the forward-line. She was a remarkable player. Physically, she was one of the fittest in the team, technically one of the best,” adds Shammi, who played with Bala since their school days.

“At that time there were only a few girls’ teams — one in Jalandhar, one in Amritsar in which I played, and one in Kairon, in which Shashi played. We met at different tournaments and became friends. We played in school nationals together, got into the Punjab team, got selected for the junior national team and then joined RCF together,” she adds.

Bala, who belonged to Barnala village in Gurdaspur district, started playing hockey because of her elder sister Uma Jaggi, herself an accomplished player and coach. “I joined the Kairon academy as a coach in 1979. The next year I brought Shashi over. She was in seventh then. I kept her there till 12th,” says Uma Jaggi. 

“She was more like a daughter to me. I worked really hard on her because I wanted her to achieve what I couldn’t. We lost our father early and because of that I couldn’t play for India for very long. I was part of the Punjab team that won several national titles. And she did it. She became a much better player than I was and went on to captain India. She made us proud,” Jaggi, who is one of eight sisters, adds.

Bala’s rise was constant. She got a call-up for the junior Indian team when she was studying in Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar. In BA second year, she got an offer to join RCF. “We played for Khalsa College together; then got into the junior India team together. We joined RCF the same day in 1987 and played there till 2005. She was an exceptional player and a beautiful human being,” says Bhupinder Kaur, another former India player. Bala represented the country in the Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games and the World Cup. 

More a friend than a coach

After hanging up her boots, she became the coach of RCF, a position she held till her untimely death. RCF has been one of the top teams in the country for the last 25 years, winning innumerable titles. 

“She was a very good coach. She understood the game because she had been a top-level player herself,” says current India player Yogita Bali, who joined RCF in 2008.

Another current India player Amandeep Kaur, who joined RCF in 2007, remembers Bala for her helpful nature. “She gave us a lot of respect and it didn’t matter if we were India players or not, there was no bias. Off the field, she treated us like her friends, and we could depend on her. We could go to her with our personal and emotional problems. She would come to our help even at 2 am. She guided us, supported us and helped us in any way she could,” says Amandeep.

Shashi Bala, who was 45, is survived by her husband Nanak Chand Thakur, who works as an engineer in RCF, and daughter Varnika, who has just completed her B.Com second year from HMV College, Jalandhar. 

Varnika, 20, who was severely injured in the accident, is undergoing treatment in Jalandhar and her condition is said to be improving. Shashi Bala’s 15-year-old son Agrim, who too passed away in the accident, was a student of MGN Public School, Kapurthala.