Forgive me Amma - The Life and Times of Dhanraj Pillay

Though India is cricket crazy hockey also holds its own place. But it pales when compared to the fanfare and media attention cricket gets. Dhanraj Pillay is among the few hockey players who have gobbled considerable space in the media. Dhanraj’s behaviour was always complex and controversial. He was emotional and always evoked mixed responses from unalloyed adulations to outright condemnation. He was truly enigmatic. In this biography the author has attempted to evaluate the class, calibre and the convulsive ebb and flow of the hockey’s icon. While doing so he has rightly focused more on the history of the Indian hockey from the time Dhanraj came to limelight in the 1980 Asia Cup. His presence on the national and the international hockey scene is inexorably linked to the most turbulent phase of Indian hockey. The eventful happenings that had a tremendous impact on the rise and fall of Dhanraj are narrated in this biography. Dhanraj’s career spans more than a decade and a half during which he was capped over 400 times and he figured in four Olympics and equal number of World Cups and Asian Games. However, to his misfortune, he failed to pick up any medal of any hue, either in the World Cup or in the Olympics. His life is like a metaphor in the story of Indian hockey which, always threatens to bloom, has brilliant moments and yet is unable to sustain the quality of performance. Dhanraj’s career has been intimately interwoven with India’s victories and defeats. His failures were India’s failures and his triumphs were India’s triumphs. This succinctly sums up the fact that Dhanraj and Indian hockey were synonymous at any given point of since 1990. Dhanraj Pillay comes out in the biography as a charismatic sportsman with all human foibles and failings.

Also when you reading the book, you feel that you are watching the matches right in front of you.. The author has done a fantastic job of writing which has all the action and thrill of a suspense book.

In one word the book is nothing short of Scintillating.