I grew up in a very small town in Bihar. A town termed “rural” by English newspapers and “pichhda” by the Hindi ones. We had basic facilities, but to dream big, you had to leave home, sometimes as early as 10 years old. While one had a choice of Engineering, Medicine and the ultimate Bihari thirst trap — civil services — sports was a distant dream, often killed in examination halls and coaching centres. There were several reasons, and a major one was the lack of a sporting hero. Maharashtra had cricketing god Sachin Tendulkar and hockey’s magician Dhanraj Pillay, Delhi had wrestling king Sushil Kumar, Haryana and Punjab had sporting heroes for every generation. Neighbouring Bengal had the prince of cricket, Sourav Ganguly; UP had........

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