Confessions of a Polo Player

“Army teams play rough, and in matches against civilian teams, umpires are pressured to rule in their favour”

Indian polo is an embarrassment, mostly because of the game’s supposed ‘chief patron’, the Indian Army. Look at the way tournaments are scheduled. It is supposed to be evenly distributed across all polo playing areas in India. But in Delhi, where Army clubs are based, tournaments go on for over three months. Other places get hardly a month. Mumbai, where most civilian players come from, gets three or four weeks.

Most of the money a tournament generates goes to the Army. The 61st Cavalry Regiment’s team, for instance, gets a lot of sponsorship revenue. Where all this money lands up, no one knows, because the Defence Ministry foots the team’s bills.

Matches between civilian and Army teams are also often unfair. Army teams play rough, and often, umpires are pressured to rule in their favour. Last year, a match in Jaipur was being conducted so unfairly that people started protesting. When the number of protestors swelled, Army men started caning them.

Few people who attend matches these days are interested in the game. Women come to watch a game in the hope that some newspaper photographer will take their picture. There was this lady who was a regular at polo matches across India. Once I was talking to a group of people about how one should choose one’s mallet carefully and she asked if that’s what a polo helmet was called.

Such people now call the shots. Just recently, the wife of a well-known film producer, who has no knowledge of the sport, got together with wives of other famous celebrities, and used their connections to get the Maharashtra government to grant them some land in Mumbai for a polo club. According to the grapevine, a famous actor-turned-politician helped her out. This lady knows nothing about the sport and will probably use the land for some other purpose.

(This polo player is based in Mumbai)

As told to Lhendup G Bhutia

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arindam