TN yet to honour its hockey hero

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Hockey star V.J. Peter won a complete set of medals at the Olympics — silver at Rome, 1960, gold in the next edition and bronze in 1968. He was an Asian Games gold medallist in 1966.

Peter was the first hockey player from Tamil Nadu to get the Arjuna award. He was also a recipient of Army’s best sportsperson of the year honour.

After Ranganathan Francis, winner of three Olympic gold medals, Peter is the most accomplished hockey player from Tamil Nadu. The dashing forward won a legion of fans wherever he played.
His achievements, however, got him nothing in his home state.

A true-blue Tamil born and brought up at St. Thomas Mount, Peter would not have realised that taking up a job with the Madras Engineering Group in Bangalore would severe his ties with Tamil Nadu. Deemed a Karnataka player, he was never celebrated in his home state and enjoyed none of the financial benefits bestowed on other Tamil Nadu sportspersons.

Peter was a winner on the field and a simple, straightforward man off it. He knew how to score goals but amassing wealth was not his forte. The Olympic champion worked as a physical education teacher in a private college after retiring from the Army and died in 1998.

His widow, three daughters and two sons, who hope that one day Tamil Nadu will acknowledge the supreme sportsperson, live at a house that threatens to give way any moment off the GST Road at Alandur.

Peter’s widow, Shanthi Mary, 70, said her husband died with a yearning for recognition in Tamil Nadu. “He was not a person who would ask for favours, but I know he was bitter at the way he was treated in his state,” she said, clutching the gold medal Peter won at the 1964 Olympics.

Mary’s major worry is her children. Two of her daughters are spinsters and her youngest son has not got a stable job. “My sons had been good hockey players, but we did not have godfathers to get them government jobs,” she said. Mary recently suffered a heart scare and hopes to see a turnaround before it is too late.

Peter may have been forgotten in Tamil Nadu but is still a hero at the MEG. “He has a pride of place in MEG’s museum where many of his medals and trophies are on display. My mother gets an invitation to all functions at the MEG. Without the support of the Army, we wouldn’t have survived,” Christopher, Peter’s elder son who is a havildar at the Officers’ Training Academy in Chennai, said.

Moved by the plight of Peter’s family, New Delhi-based Nehru Hockey Society gave Mary `5.6 lakh last year. What remains elusive is recognition back home.