The Race of My Life (11 page)

At the starting line, I put down my bag, warmed-up and wiped the perspiration from my body with a towel. As we waited for the race to begin, a couple of moulvis, with flowing beards, skullcaps and carrying rosaries in their hands, encircled Khaliq. They blessed him, saying, ‘May Allah be with you.’ Irritated by this blatant favouritism, I shouted, ‘Moulvi Sahib, we, too, are the children of the same God. Don’t we deserve the same blessings?’ For a moment, they were dumbstruck, and then one of them half-heartedly muttered, ‘May God strengthen your legs, too.’

There was pin-drop silence as we stood at the starting line waiting for the race to begin. The silence was oppressive. The starter, dressed in a white shirt and trousers, a red overall, white peaked cap and black shoes, stood on a table behind us. He shouted, ‘On your marks,’ fired the gun and the race began. The audience suddenly awoke and began to chant: ‘Pakistan zindabad; Abdul Khaliq zindabad.’ Khaliq was ahead of me but I caught up before we had completed the first 100 metres. We were shoulder-to-shoulder, then surprisingly, Khaliq seemed to slacken and I surged ahead as if on wings. I finished the 200 metres about ten yards ahead of Khaliq, clocking 20.7 seconds that equalled the world record. My coach, Ranbir Singh, the manager and all my team members leapt to their feet in jubilation. I was embraced, thumped on the back and then lifted on to their shoulders as they expressed their happiness both vocally and physically.

It was indeed a joyful day for India, but a terrible tragedy for Pakistan. Khaliq himself was so devastated that he lay on the ground weeping pitifully. I patted his back and tried to console him by saying that victory and defeat were part of the same game and should not be taken to heart, but he was too humiliated by the fact that he had been defeated before the eyes of his countrymen.

After the race, I ran a victory lap of the stadium, while loudspeakers announced: ‘The athlete running before you is Milkha Singh. He does not run, he flies! His victory will be recorded in Pakistan’s sports’ history, and we confer the title of “Flying Sikh” on him.’ It was General Ayub Khan who coined the title ‘Flying Sikh’, when he had congratulated me, saying, ‘
Tum daude nahi, udhey ho
—you do not run, but fly!’ As I passed in front of the women’s section, the ladies lifted their burqas from their faces so that they could have a closer look at me—an incident that was widely reported in the Pakistani press.

And so, with this victory, I became the Flying Sikh, a title that soon became synonymous with my name all over the world.

returned to India in a thoughtful mood. I had confronted my past while in Pakistan and accepted the reality that I was the product of both countries—Pakistan was my childhood where I had learnt how to face hardships, India was my youth and adulthood that saw the fulfilment of my dreams.

After a few days in Delhi, I left for Germany as captain of India’s athletic team. This was the first stop on a tour of Europe that extended from May to July 1960 and culminated with the Rome Olympics in August.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover how famous I was in Germany. My first race in Frankfurt was a friendly contest where I would be participating with one of their top athletes, Carl Kaufmann. When I was introduced to this splendid young man who later became a good friend of mine, he shyly told me, through an interpreter, that his countrymen believed that except for Milkha Singh, he had no equals in the world.

Typically, I was not in the best of spirits on the day of the contest. Perhaps I was still jet-lagged or had yet to get acclimatized to the weather. As a result, I lost the first race badly. My coach, Ranbir Singh, and teammates tried very hard to console me, but I was too humiliated by my defeat. I had never lost a 400-metre race till that day, so how could this happen?

Another contest was held at Cologne a few days later. I performed better this time and Kaufmann and I were tied for the first place. For me, this was as bad as being defeated. Then, it was announced that as a result of a photo finish, I had reached the tape before Kaufmann. My victory convinced Kaufmann that I was getting back into form and that it would be more prudent to avoid further contests. Another German ace sprinter, Manfred Kinder, participated in several races with me, but I won each of them.

We spent about fifteen or twenty days in Germany, and one amusing incident still stands out. On the day we arrived in Cologne, one of our team members, Lal Chand, champion of the 26-mile marathon, was the cause of much hilarity. The team was staying in a high-rise hotel and had been allocated rooms on different floors. When we reached the hotel, we were told to deposit our luggage in our respective rooms and then assemble in the dining room on the ground floor. Being familiar with the mechanics of how a lift worked, we reached our destination without any mishap. But not Lal Chand, a simple-minded fellow ignorant of new technology, who went up and down for thirty minutes, without knowing how to get off. Each time he tried to step out of the lift the doors would close on him. When the other passengers enquired which floor he wanted, he did not understand what they were saying, and just smiled. Finally, he landed on the ground floor, wearing no necktie or shoes, just his bathroom slippers. He looked dishevelled and harassed and complained loudly that he been caught in the clutches of a demonic contraption that refused to let him go! We were embarrassed by his appearance and the attention he was attracting from the other diners and immediately dispatched him to his room, telling him that he must return properly dressed for dinner. But he lost his bearings, again. After dinner I went to Lal Chand’s room to find out what had happened and found him arguing with the hotel staff. Apparently, his shoes and suitcase were missing from his room. I tried to reason with him, explaining that this was a five-star hotel with a reputation to uphold, and that his baggage could not have been stolen; it must have been misplaced and would be returned to him. But my words had no effect on him and he marched out of the room.

His next target was the receptionist, who could not understand what he was saying, but was eager to help a guest. She sent a couple of attendants up to his room, and when they entered, he pointed towards his bare feet to indicate that he had could not find his shoes. Misunderstanding him, they took him to a shoe shop where he raised a ruckus again, saying that he didn’t want new shoes, he wanted his own ones back. When he returned to his room, he explained the situation to me in Punjabi and I communicated the problem of his missing clothes to the interpreter in English. It was then that we discovered that he had left his room in such a mess that the staff had helpfully tidied up after him—his shoes had been placed under the telephone table, and his clothes had been ironed and packed inside his suitcase. Much ado about nothing! Lal Chand had spent three hours caught up in a whirlwind of his own making, and to top it all, had missed his dinner as well.

I have always had a special love for Germany and the German people. Over the years, I have been back several times, visiting many cities, including Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich and even Berlin during the Cold War years. When I saw the Berlin Wall, I was deeply saddened to see how one nation had been forcibly split into two by this forbidding artificial boundary. It was yet another instance of how the lives of ordinary citizens are disturbed by politics. The Germans were familiar with my records and achievements and admired me to such an extent that they even had calendars printed with my photograph.

From Germany we flew to London, and then on to the British army base at Aldershot, about 140 miles away, where we had to undergo a military training course. We were put up in the barracks, while our manager, a naval officer called Commander Pereira, stayed at the officers’ quarters nearby. We had brought along a cook from India, Harnam Singh, who had once been employed by the Maharaja of Patiala. We had also carried dry provisions like flour, pulses and masalas, and would go to the market every day to buy fresh vegetables, meat or chicken so that Harnam could prepare desi-style khana for us. None of us could have survived on bland English food.

One day, I received a visit from a distraught Englishman who lived on the military base. He had a peculiar problem that he wanted to share with me, which involved the Indian 32-mile walking champion, Zora Singh. The champion had a flourishing six-inch-long handlebar moustache, whose tips almost reached up to his eyes. Apparently, when Zora walked past their house, his appearance so terrified the English officer’s three-year-old son that he would shriek in fear. Zora Singh, oblivious of the impact he had, tried to be friendly, but the child was too traumatized to be pacified. Our team was highly amused by the incident and persuaded Zora Singh to either avoid interacting with the child or trim his moustache. He decided to trim it; after all, he could always grow it back again once we returned to India.

Behind the barracks there was a large, beautifully maintained playing field, where we would practice every morning and evening. Our next event, was an important athletic contest in London, in which sportsmen from fifty countries would be participating. London’s Punjabi community had turned up in full force and cheered me vociferously when I won race after race. The English gardener at the stadium was a fan of mine and would always wish me good luck before a race. ‘Mr Singh, I want to see you win,’ he would say, jumping up and down. After each win, I would give him a small tip.

While I was in England, I had received a special invitation from the Soviet Union to participate in a race in Moscow. This event was held in memory of the Znamensky brothers, Georgy and Seraphim, who, in the 1930s, were the Soviet long-distance champions. This tournament, first established in 1958, is today an annual event that draws athletes from all over the world. But when I went there in 1960, most of the participants were from Soviet Bloc countries, though there were a few sportspeople from Asia and Europe, including Korea, France, Norway and England.

That was also the era when the India–Russia Friendship Treaty was at its strongest, and wherever we went we would be greeted by cries of ‘Rusi–Hindi bhai, bhai’, and snatches of Hindi film songs. Raj Kapoor and Nargis were probably more popular in the Soviet Union then they were in India. Their film
Awara
had been released in 1951 and since then its actors were treated like glamorous celebrities. The Russian people had tremendous admiration for our country and I was astonished by how much they knew about our history, particularly the freedom movement and Independence, and leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru.

Nina, my English-speaking interpreter, was equally curious about India, and would keep asking me questions about the conditions of our workers and peasants. I was pleasantly surprised by the serious tone of her enquiries. Most other foreigners I had met seemed more interested in the more exotic aspects of India—elephants, maharajas, snake charmers, jugglers and mendicants. That’s when it dawned upon me how different the Soviet Union was from Western countries.

Whenever I entered the Lenin Stadium, young boys and girls would run up to Nina, requesting her to get them my autograph, or asking me, through her, to tell them the story of my life and career. While listening to their eager questions, I contemplated on the meaning of fame. Adulation and glory can be a double-edged sword that can make or break a celebrity. In the world of sports, fans follow and cheer their favourites, particularly when they win and break records, but the moment their hero falters, their allegiance moves to the next rising star.

In this meet, too, my win was the result of a photo finish, the camera proving that it was my torso that hit the finishing tape first. The crowds were overjoyed, particularly the sizable Indian population that was living in Moscow, who leapt out of their seats and ran into the stadium, embracing me and lifting me up on to their shoulders with excitement.

I was interviewed by the Soviet press agencies, which asked me a series of searching questions: What were my impressions about the Soviet Union? What did I think of Indo-Soviet relations? What did the people of India think of Russia? They seemed to be fairly happy with my bland replies.