Tokyo Olympics 2020: Hockey medallist Vivek Sagar Prasad dreams of a concrete house from cash award

Vivek Sagar Prasad does not have fancy wishes. He doesn’t yearn for a car, a lavish house in a new city, or an expensive watch, neither is he going overboard with all the success. The first thing Vivek is going to do when he returns and gets the Rs 1 crore cash prize promised by the Madhya Pradesh government is build a pucca (concrete) house for his family. His voice, over a series of WhatsApp calls, does not reflect what he and his team have achieved. You have to remind him that he is part of history now, but Vivek is not the one to romanticise. “Haan sir (Yes, sir),” is all he says. His life has suddenly changed. His WhatsApp feed is full of unseen messages. He says he does not have time to reply to them. Most of these messages are from unsaved numbers. He does not even know who he is thanking for “making them proud of him.” But he reveals himself freely when he says he does not want to leave his village and instead build a pucca house there. [caption id=“attachment_9358431” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] India hockey player Vivek Sagar Prasad. Image: Hockey India[/caption] “With money, I am going to build a house. The current house in which the family lives is made of cement sheets. There are not enough rooms as well. My dream is to make a pucca house for my family. And I want to live in Chandon, my village. I don’t want to leave my village.” But none of this would have been possible had PR Sreejesh not saved the penalty corner given to Germany with six seconds remaining in the bronze medal match. A confident Vivek says, “It was nerve-wracking, yes, but we had trust in each other, we knew we will win.” That’s something that is new about both the hockey teams of today - the new approach, the new mindset, and the nerves of steel in crunch moments to come out on top. Even in a soft voice, he does not shy away from saying that he is mentally strong. That’s self-praise, he knows, but that is also a fact. Four years ago, he was battling for life as an injury to collarbone had led to other complications in his body. His positive attitude helped him fight the illness, get back on his feet and resume his sport. He wanted to play hockey for India, his childhood dream, something his father had objections to. “My father wanted me to become an engineer because my brother was also studying engineering. My interest was in hockey. They used to stop me from playing hockey. They were right in a way because no one from where I come (Chandon, a small village near Itarsi district in MP) had gone on to become a national athlete. They had never heard about anyone so how would they think that it is possible but I had it in me that I want to go on and become a national-level player.” Vivek dared to dream. And his dream started to come true when he met Ashok Kumar, the 1972 Games bronze medallist, and son of legend Dhyan Chand. “Whatever I have learned in hockey is under him. When you get the basics right and get good coaching at the start, it helps in your career,” he said. He is fittingly a member of this men’s hockey team that carries the same mental fortitude. Despite being bashed in 1-7 in the second match, the team did not lose focus. Regrouped and came back strongly to beat Spain 3-0 and rescurrect the campaign. [caption id=“attachment_9869781” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] India’s Vivek Sagar Prasad (32) alongside his teammates during a men’s field hockey match against Australia. AP[/caption] Vivek says the loss was unexpected, nobody in the team imagined such a big margin loss at just the start of the competition. So what helped in overcoming the massive loss? What helped was a team culture that allows committing mistakes and forgetting them and moving on. “There was no other way to tackle it than overcoming it. If that defeat was stuck in our heads, we would have failed in the next matches as well,” he said. Graham Reid, the coach, says Vivek has set in place a mindset on which the team runs. It is called ‘The next thing mentality’. “Coach always tells us about the ’next thing mentality’, that whatever happened has happened, we cannot change what has been done in the past; let’s look ahead, focus on what is ahead. That mentality helped us come back strongly in the next game. That really makes us brave. He does not really scream at you for making mistakes, he says look ahead now. He enjoys his hockey. He asks us to be cool and enjoy the game.” The team is set to reach India on 10 August and si due to meet the PM, Odisha CM, and attend several other functions. For now, Vivek has some days to relax, and reply to the unseen messages on Whatsapp. There are plenty of them.