Maharaj Krishan Kaushik

Maharaj Krishan Kaushik (born May 2, 1955) is a former member of the India national field hockey team and former coach of the Indian women's national field hockey team. He was a member of the team when it won the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.In 1998, he received the Arjuna Award. He also wrote the book The Golden Boot.[1] For his coaching contribution to Indian hockey he received the Dronacharya Award in 2002.

Olympic medal record
Men's field hockey
1980 MoscowTeam

Chak De India
Main article: Chak De India

Kaushik was involved in the development of the 2007 Bollywood film Chak De India. Its screenplay was written by Bollywood screenwriter Jaideep Sahani. Sahani had read a small article about the winning of the gold at the 2002 Commonwealth Games by the India women's national field hockey team and thought that the premise would make an interesting film. Hockey player Mir Ranjan Negi (who was accused of throwing the match against Pakistan during the 1982 Asian Games) has often been compared with Kabir Khan in the media.[2][3][4][5][6]

On this connection Negi, himself, later commented, "This movie is not a documentary of Mir Ranjan Negi's life. It is in fact the story of a team that becomes a winning lot from a bunch of hopeless girls [...] There is nothing called World Championships in international hockey. It would be stupid to believe that Yash Raj Films would pump in Rs.450 million to make a documentary on me. So it's illogical that it is a documentation of my life." [7]

Sahani further stated in an interview with The Hindu:

I felt why has the girls’ team been given so little coverage. I shared the idea with Aditya (Chopra). He liked it and said stop everything else and concentrate on it. I started my research by spending time with hockey players [...] It’s just a matter of chance that Negi's story matches with Kabir Khan. There are many cases, like in Colombia, football players are killed for not performing well for the club. I had no idea about Negi’s story while writing the script, and he joined us after the script was ready. In fact, his name was suggested by M.K. Kaushik, who was the coach of the team that won the Commonwealth Games’ gold. On day one, when Negi read the script, he cried and it was then that we came to know about his story.[8]

Sahani also stated in another interview with NDTV.com that the script was conceived before he met Negi:

"Our script was written a year and a half back. It is very unfortunate that something, which is about women athletes, has just started becoming about Negi. And if you would go and ask Negi, he would probably tell you that he came and read the script that was written a year and a half back, and he started crying. Next day, he came and said look, it had happened to me also."[9]

Sahini further noted that, "the story of Chak De was deeply inspired by the real life story of ex Chief National Coach Maharaj Krishan Kaushik and his Indian Women's hockey team's real feat of winning the Commonwealth and many other championships."[10]

Both Kaushik and Negi did influence the development of the film after being approached by Sahini. Sahini first met with Kaushik and later recalled that, "M K Kaushik and his girls taught us all we knew about hockey. Then he recommended Negi to us, because when we finished writing and finished casting, we needed someone to train the girls. Negi assembled a team of hockey players to train the girls."[9]

Kaushik also stated in the same interview, "I taught him everything about the game, starting from how the camp is conducted, how the girls come from different backgrounds and cultures, the psychological factors involved. Also how the coach faces pressure to select girls from different states and teams."[9]

Sahini also contacted Negi and asked him to coach the actors portraying the hockey team. Negi agreed and trained both the girls and Shahrukh Khan for over four months.[11]

References
  2. "Back to the goal post". The Hindu. August 10, 2007. Archived from the original on April 13, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  3. "Chak De India based on real life story of Mir Negi". IndiaFM. June 5, 2007. Archived from the original on April 13, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  4. "Exclusive: Chak De's real-life hero". Sify. August 17, 2007. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  5. "More than reel life; the story of truth, lies & a man called Mir". Hindustan Times. June 26, 2007. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  6. "'They said I'd taken one lakh per goal . . . people used to introduce me as Mr Negi of those seven goals". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 2008-04-11. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  7. "Chak De India not my life story Mir Ranjan Negi". Bollywoodsargam.com. 18 August 2007. Archived from the original on 29 October 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  8. "In the company of ideas". The Hindu. September 7, 2007. Archived from the original on October 29, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  9. "Chak De: Searching the real Kabir Khan". NDTV.com. October 30, 2007. Archived from the original on October 30, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  10. "There's nobody like Madhuri - Jaideep Sahni". IndiaFM. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  11. Lokapally, Vijay (August 10, 2007). "Back to the goal post". The Hindu. Archived from the original on April 13, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-07.
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