Unfair game

TNN
Hockey is our national sport and it is going to get it's due, atleast on screen with the Yashraj film Chak de India, but not before the Women's Hockey Association of India is satisfied.
After three disappointing films, Kabul Express , Tara Ra Rum Pum and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom , there is still no peace for Yashraj Films. Their trump card, Chak De India , reportedly, has run into trouble even before it has released. The Women's Hockey Association of India is pretty upset with Yashraj Films and has demanded a screening of the film to see if they have portrayed the players in the right manner. Vidya Stoke, President of the Women's Hockey Association of India says, "We want to see the movie before its release.

Couple of years ago, when the movie was in the planning stage, Yash Chopra sought help from us. We were more than happy to help them thinking that it would create awareness about the sport in the country. They took a lot of inputs from us and it has helped them big time in making the movie. It's only fair that we get to see it before the release." She added, "However, after we helped them out with research, we never heard from them. Now, we got to know that the movie is releasing very soon, but they have not kept us posted about it. We should have been given the script of the movie so that we could have an idea about how they have portrayed women's hockey in the film. We want a pre-release screening of the film. That's it."

Chak De India is based on women's hockey. The movie shows women players from different corners of the country . The entire team enacts a team of underdogs and how things change with a new coach (Shah Rukh Khan) at the helm of affairs. The team of underdogs gets their self-confidence , and finally wins a championship. Stoke lets us in on the reason behind her displeasure. "Our women's hockey team is doing really good. If they are showing that they are turning women hockey players from zero to hero, that's really unfair. That will reflect badly on our team. A coach enables players to perform well and never transforms them from zero to hero, not in our team at least," she said.

(CONTRIBUTED BY RANJIB MAJUMDER, SANDIPAN DALAL, DOMINIC FERRAO, URVASHI ASHAR, RUBINA A KHAN AND MADHUREETA MUKHERJEE)