Lalit Upadhyay, the wristy kalakar with kamartod dribbles who added style to Indian hockey

Although Lalit would say many years later that his hockey roots lie in the nondescript village of Karampur, about 45km north of his birthplace, Varanasi, it was the reputation of the latter city that preceded him. Varanasi is the city that gave the world the likes of Mohammad Shahid, Vivek Singh and Rahul Singh. And Dad says it didn’t take long to see that young Lalit was cut from similar cloth.

“UP ki skill hai wo toh sabhi ko maloom hai (Everyone knows about the skills someone from UP possesses). Moreover, he was from Varanasi, and he had those skills right from the beginning,” said Dad.

That was the beginning of a storied career in which Upadhyay would, among other things, win medals at back-to-back Olympics, something that many a great before him could only dream of, including the legendary Dhanraj Pillay. “I felt so proud. I have played at four Olympics, but I don’t have a medal. Lalit Upadhyay won back-to-back Olympic medals. It shows that he had all the talents,” Pillay told The Indian Express.

But before he dazzled the world with his skills, Lalit had to dodge past what at that point seemed like a huge hurdle. Even before he became an adult, Lalit became the subject of a sting operation. His name was used as bait for a player selection sting involving the former Indian Hockey Federation secretary, K Jothikumaran. For no fault of his, Lalit’s reputation was ruined. The then 17-year-old even considered quitting the sport and, according to his former India teammate and close friend Devindar Walmiki, much worse.

“He was young, and he never thought that this would become so huge. He was just a guy who got caught up in that moment. He even thought of not living any more,” Walmiki says. Friends and family pulled him out of that phase, and Pillay ensured that Lalit did not lose his way by getting him a contract with Air India, one of the strongest domestic teams back then.

Veteran forward Lalit Kumar Upadhyay announced his retirement from international hockey, bringing the curtains down on a career that spanned over a decade. (PHOTO: Hockey India)

At the core of Lalit’s unofficial blacklisting at the time was the notion that he was a player who was ready to buy his way to the top but Pillay knew that nothing could be farther than the truth. “He is a very respectable person. He used to be a very softspoken boy. If there is some controversy being created somewhere, he will not be there. He will move out of that place,” he said.

For SV Sunil, whose own storied career coincided with Lalit’s entry into the Indian team and his eventual peak, what the latter went on to achieve in his career should act as a retort to all those who doubted him in those turbulent years. “Making a comeback and playing for maybe one or two years is still easy. But to play for 10-15 years after that and win so many medals, he has answered everyone that he was not wrong,” Sunil said.

From fringes to mainstay

There are some common words you hear when speaking about Lalit to those who knew him best in his career. “Hard-working” is the most common of those, something that Walmiki feels helped Upadhyay get out of that dark phase around 2008. The other is his astonishing command inside the D. “I used to call him ‘ankle breaker’ back in the day because his dodges used to always be like a snake,” says Walmiki. Sunil uses the word ‘kalakari (creativity)’ to describe what Upadhyay used to do in the D. It is a word commonly used in the past for the aforementioned greats from Varanasi. “His dodging skills were his plus point. He could dodge anyone and draw a PC out of any situation. Bohot kalakari tha uska inside the circle,” says Sunil.

Other teammates hail his ‘kamartod’ dodges, a hat tip to his incredible ability to dribble so fast that it would tie the opponents in knots. Eventually, Sunil says, there couldn’t be an Indian team without Lalit Upadhyay in it. “In 2017-2018, his peak started, and he never looked back. At the time, it had become like Lalit had to be in the team no matter what. He was a permanent fixture in an 18-player squad,” he says.

As it turns out, right at the fag end of that peak came two Olympic medals. “When he came back (from the Tokyo Olympics), I remember he came to my house with the medal and he put it around my neck first thing,” says Walmiki. “He said, ‘I really missed you there, but this is what your brother has achieved.’ That moment is hard to frame in words.”