Guru Drona as a father figure

Imagine the tense scene in your mind’s eye… A 17-year-old girl prodigy from Sanawar was facing her worst crisis. The petite girl had won the 80m hurdles event in Junior Nationals, trained by her Army officer father. She had joined NIS Patiala for coaching (immediately after her Senior Cambridge exams), recommended by Sanawar’s Oxford-educated Headmaster, Maj Som Dutt, who wrote she had Olympic potential in her 1966 school-leaving report.

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With the evening spread out against the sky above the verdant 268-acre sports facility, feisty Harpal Kaur Brar should have been on song, but was, instead, distraught. Ordered to cross a high hurdle as part of her schedule, the instructor’s brusque manner had set her on edge. She failed repeatedly.

This is when an experienced coach, with a kind and fatherly disposition, stepped in. A former hurdler of merit and a science graduate, Joginder Singh Saini had watched the unfolding imbroglio and how it gutted the girl. Avoiding bruised egos and what could become a soul-destroying face-off, the wise maestro put his hand on her trembling head and smiled. ‘Relax, I know you can do it. You have to represent India at the 1967 Tokyo World Universiade, remember? Relax your muscles and mind. Your father is a great friend and himself a former national-level hurdler. What will he say if you give up?’

Through tears, the young girl looked up, wonderstruck; soaking in his wise words. Her Eureka moment had arrived. As she jauntily walked back, Saini, already rated India’s greatest athletics coach, had quietly decreased the hurdle’s height. She sailed over it like a swan in free flight. In subsequent leaps, he restored the hurdle to the height she was stuck at, and then more. ‘Yayyy!’ she gleefully shouted as she repeatedly flew over the hurdle with relaxed ease. She went on to reach the finals of her 800m event in Tokyo before 80,000 fans, the finals being won by American Madeline Manning. Harpal Kaur broke the 800m national record at the Karnal National Games in 1970.

Saini had made his mark on not just Harpal, whose first coach he became, but on a legion of top athletes in the decades of 1960-1990. An acclaimed 1997 Dronacharya awardee, his Brahmastra was the deep understanding of his trainees’ psyche and potential, across gender. He synergised deep insight with transformational coaching skills, using modern sports science methodology to maximise athletic potential into medals. PT Usha, Shivnath Singh, Gurbachan Randhawa, Adille Sumariwalla, Kamaljit Sandhu, Manjit Walia and Rita Sen are among the top athletes for whom ‘Saini Saab’ was Guru Drona.

The bells tolled for him on March 1. Harpal Kaur, my wife, walked quietly into my study, clutching The Tribune, tears unabashedly streaming down her face. ‘We attended his son’s wedding at NIS, remember? He was like daddy.’ I remembered. I wept.