“Hockey didn’t just teach us a sport, it taught us how to become human,” says Nasmina, her eyes glowing with a confidence she once believed was beyond her reach. She is one among thousands shaped by One Thousand Hockey Legs (OTHL), an NGO that has turned government school playgrounds into gateways of hope for underprivileged children aged 11 to 15, children who once felt the world had no room for their dreams.
When she joined OTHL in 2020, Nasmina was like any other child living in a cramped Delhi chawl—uncertain, unnoticed and unaware of what lay outside the narrow lanes of her neighbourhood. Today, she stands tall as one of the most promising students in her school, excelling in both academics and hockey, proving how sport can change not just days, but destinies.
A Class XI Science student at Government Co-Ed Senior Secondary School, Dwarka Sector 22, she comes from a modest family, her father a labourer, her mother a homemaker. Yet hockey gave her a world far bigger than the one defined by these struggles.
“This sport didn’t just make us good players. It opened the world to us,” she says. Now her dream is to join the Indian defence forces, inspired by her sister Jesminara who serves with the Assam Police.
Her journey began in the most unexpected way. “I didn’t even know what hockey was,” she laughs. During the lockdown, when silence filled the city and hope felt distant, Arumugam Sir arrived in their neighbourhood carrying hockey sticks. That winter afternoon in December 2020 changed her life. “Since that day, I haven’t let the stick go,” she says.
Her classmate Gitika Beniwal’s experience mirrors hers. “People like us rarely get opportunities. Sir Arumugam changed our lives,” Gitika says, her voice full of gratitude.
The roots of this transformation go back to 2008, the year India failed to qualify for the Olympics in hockey for the first time. While the nation mourned, K. Arumugam, a journalist, IIT Bombay graduate and successful professional, chose a completely different response. He walked away from career comforts to pursue a mission he believed was crucial: rebuild Indian hockey from the ground up.
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He saw the reality of the urban poor, children attending schools without playgrounds, growing up in communities without direction or hope. “They idle away in schools on working days and wander in parks on holidays,” he observed. Hockey, he believed, could be a bridge, towards discipline, dignity, education and confidence.
Thus was born One Thousand Hockey Legs with a simple, powerful idea of taking hockey to schools, bringing children back to classrooms and giving them a game, and through it a future.
Eighteen years later, OTHL operates in more than 100 government schools across Delhi. Hundreds of children like Nasmina and Gitika now walk with purpose—children from slums, resettlement colonies and labourers’ families who have discovered what it means to dream and what it means to rise.
For them, hockey stick was not just sports equipment, it was an identity, a voice, a place in a society that once ignored them. And it all began in the same classrooms corridors and playgrounds where India’s hockey heart once beat the strongest.
As India celebrates 100 years of its hockey legacy, the message is clear: If Indian hockey is to rise again, it must return to the schools and colleges where the next generation of champions is waiting. Hockey must go home.
Because in the end, it’s not about producing champions, it’s about planting the game in the minds of children. Only 20 players can wear the India jersey at a time, but if thousands pick up a hockey stick, champions will emerge on their own. This has been the unwavering belief of 65-year-old Arumugam.
By Joe Williams
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