“I am no harta-karta in hockey, am I?” Shah Rukh fumed at the launch function of the IPL’s Kolkata team, when asked by a reporter about how much he rues the downfall of Indian hockey in the backdrop of the Chak de India! euphoria last year.
“I know there is a huge amount of sadness among Indian sports fans for what happened to the hockey team. Hockey has traditionally been a glorious sport in India. But let’s all get over this blamegame. Let’s put it behind us,” an animated SRK retorted when asked if he should have invested reasictically into hockey rather than going for cricket.
“But hockey will bounce back, it should learn a lesson from the way the Australian cricket has failed on the recent tour. Australia is a great team and they will bounce back, so will Indian hockey,” said Shah Rukh, drawing a parallel between the two cases. “In fact, I am the only actor to play in a film which is about women’s hockey. What more can I do? As if my father played hockey, my father’s father played hockey, and so on,” he remarked, tongue-in-cheek.
Shah Rukh had starred as the coach in the blockbuster film about the Indian women’s hockey team that made waves last year.
