Star. Veteran. Prankster.
Fun. Crowd favourite. Team man.
Brother. Life of the party. Legend.
These and other such epithets have been used, often, for a 36-year-old whose name will forever be associated with the Indian men’s hockey team breaking the voodoo, removing the shackles and throwing off the albatross of a 40-year medal drought at the Olympics. The irony of six seconds defining a 22-year-long career, with its fair share of ecstasy and agony, is not lost on P.R.
Sreejesh. “That’s just how life is, isn’t it? I have made better saves, played better games, won tougher matches and yet, my hockey career is, in a way, all about those six seconds in Tokyo. And the funny thing is, it shouldn’t even have been that way, we were definitely the better side on that day and should have won easily.
And then I would have been just one in a team of 16. I still am, but that final save brought me front and centre. Makes you believe all the more in destiny, right,” he says with a shrug, settling down for a relaxed chat just before leaving for Paris.
Destiny. The word has been intricately entwined with the man from Kizhakkambalam village, Ernakulam, in Kerala. How else do you explain the lanky youngster moving to the G.
V. Raja Sports School in Thiruvananthapuram at the age of 12, far from his family despite never having been separated even for a few hours until then? Or being advised, and agreeing, to try out hockey goalkeeping even though that is one event his State, a sportin.