This Kerala village school was once a playground of hockey dreams

Ten-year-old Snehalakshmi misses her school and friends a lot. But there is one more thing that she misses the most—playing hockey.

A student of SNDP School in Kerala’s Malayalapuzha, Snehalakshmi used to practice hockey every day until Covid-19 struck last year and forced schools to go online. For over a year now, she has not touched the hockey stick, and badly misses her school, the playground, her playmates and the daily practice sessions.

For a young girl coming from a lower middle class family, her dying hopes got a boost last month when the Indian men’s team won the bronze medal in Tokyo Olympics, after a medal drought of 41 years. The women’s hockey team too did really well, coming close to winning a medal after starting out badly with a 1–5 loss to Netherlands.

For Snehalakshmi, who had gone to Pathanamthitta town with her friends to celebrate India’s victory, this was enough to revive her grand dreams.

A master and his students

It is not often that a young girl like Snehalakshmi, whose father works as a driver and mother a domestic help, dares to dream big and play hockey for the national team. But if there was one place that such dreams could come true in Kerala, it’s her school, the SNDP school in Pathanamthitta district’s Malayalapuzha.

A government-aided private school established in 1940, it has a long history of nurturing passion in hockey that got Malayalappuzha its moniker as Kerala’s hockey village. The school has produced around 250 state level hockey players and a handful for the national team.

“I wouldn’t have played hockey if I had not been to SNDP school,” says Aleyamma Mathew, who played 118 international matches between 1988 and 1996 and scored 72 goals.

Aleyamma, who now works as a chief office superintendent in the Railways in Chennai, recalls that her passion for hockey began with a man called TK Ravindran, the school’s physical education teacher.

Malayalapuzha school used to win district and state level athletic competitions in 1960s and 70s. The era of hockey began in the late seventies. Ravindran who has been the sports trainer in the school since 1968 recollects how it all began. “We went for an athletic competition to Ernakulam in 1977. Watching hockey there, we came back buying twenty hockey sticks.” Ravindran and his students haven’t looked back since.

The team won the championship at the state level meet in 1980 which marked the beginning of an era that carved out a niche in the world of hockey. “The school had more than 1,000 students in those days. Most of the students were passionate about hockey. The students used to come to the school at six in the morning. We used to practice for two to three hours every day,” says Ravindran who had been the sole source of inspiration for the students for a couple of decades.

“Sulekha, Bindu and Aleyamma were selected to the national coaching camp and Aleyamma got selected to the Indian women’s team,” he says.

Seeing the abundance of talent, the state sports council has conducted special coaching sessions in SNDP school in the summer holidays.

“This is one specific reason for creating a bunch of players from the school. We all have benefitted from these summer camps. Ravindran sir insisted on playing matches between boys and girls. This practice really helped in boosting the confidence for girls,” says Shini KP who has played 11 times at the national level since 1980.

Shini and her sister Sherley KP, who also has played at the national level, started their sports career in Malayalappuzha school. Shiny is a teacher in a Kerala government school and Sherley is in Kerala Police.

The Kerala women’s hockey team had eight members from Malayalappuzha village, including Shini, Sherley, Aleyamma, Bindu and Sulekha, all former students of SNDP school.

A glory buried in past

Ravindran retired in 2002 but continued to be a member of the sports council. Since his retirement, SNDP school never had a teacher exclusively for physical education. By this time, the number of students in the school came down and it lost its prominence in hockey. The post of physical education trainer was also abolished.

“Now we have only 136 students. With this strength, it is difficult to get a physical education trainer,” says Sreeja VS, a teacher at SNDP school, a former student and a state hockey player.

“We raised funds and managed to run a school bus. The students in this school are from economically backward class and are not able to pay the fees. Still, we want to provide them training in hockey,” she says.

Sreeja, however, trains the children, including Snehalakshmi, in hockey despite her other responsibilities. “The children are really passionate about the game but I can only train them skills. I need one more coach to train the game and let them play,” she says, adding that it is too risky for the small children to play hockey without being monitored properly.

Many children hope for a revival of sports and hockey training in the school once it reopens after the Covid-19 pandemic.

PR Sreejesh, deputy director in the state education department, says he would do his best in this regard.

Until then, Snehalakshmi will keep her fingers crossed and hopes high.