There are sports schools in Kerala…

That is why in India, especially from the point of view of women, Kerala has done better than any other state in India. Goda Varma Raja, the great patron of sports who was a friend of mine, started the first sports school in Kerala, the G V Raja Sports School. Where did P T Usha come from? She almost won a medal. She was really outstanding! We must build that kind of infrastructure.

In the sports schools where P T Usha and Shiny Wilson studied, they had to follow the same academic syllabus that other schools followed. And when I interviewed them, they said that there was a lot of pressure on them, as they had to study and also perform well in sports.

God has given us 24 hours per day. There is plenty of time. I don't accept it when students say that they have no time to do both sports and studies. If one has certain principles in life, there is no question of lack of time.

After their studies they have to work for a living. Shouldn't a sportsperson be concentrating on sports alone instead of working as say, a manager in some firm?

You know, quite frankly, if you take track and field; you require only one-and-a-half hours of concentrated training per day. So you do have time to study, to work and time for the family too. Don't tell me that a person cannot set aside an hour-and-a-half a day. I don't accept that.

Of late, we have excelled in individual sports like chess, tennis, billiards, etc.

I will tell you why. Your mother is the major influence and guiding force in your formative years. Take for example, Maggie Amritraj, a tennis player herself, took her three boys to tennis courts, sat with them and got them trained well. She saw to it that her boys got the right training. And it was a complete success. Vijay Amritraj is recognised all over the world.

After the Olympics, everybody talks at length about why we didn't bring home a single gold medal. But after the postmortem, everything is forgotten…

I will read out a passage from what I have written for a magazine recently: 'There is also anger, disgust and eventual disillusionment so often expressed by the press, public after each failed foray out of India whether in the Olympics, Asian games or Commonwealth games. It is the easiest thing in the world to be critical of failures. To expatiate on failures has only lead to public indifference and official apathy. Please do not contribute. Be critical. Please do wish our sportsmen who are going to the Sydney Olympics the very best. They are in the team because of lifetime of discipline, consuming passion and talent. He or she has given 100 per cent of the body, mind and spirit.'

Don't we have to be critical of at least the hurdles that the government and the officialdom create?

Not after the Games. There should be no postmortem. Whatever you may say, the British who ruled our country for 200 years, created an atmosphere for sport. They developed a sports culture. I used to play hockey and cricket for my college here at Chepauk. Huge crowds would turn up to watch the matches. Today, you won't find two people there.

Has our obsession with one sport -- cricket -- affected other sports?

I think I agree. I agree with Milkha Singh on this point. That if some of the money, enthusiasm and sponsorship, which go into cricket were put into other sports, there would be great improvement.

Only the Commonwealth countries play cricket, that is, only a dozen countries. So, our chances of coming out first, second or third are higher. Today in the United Nations, there are 180 countries. Soccer is played by almost all the countries and India has absolutely no chance at all in the game. In cricket, with 12 countries, we stand a chance. See what I mean. The public wants something Indian to come up victorious. Like in chess, like in snooker, like in billiards, India has performed well.

After Anand's success in chess, we see a lot of young boys and girls excelling in chess.

Every day, you see at least half a page devoted to chess alone in The Hindu while in my young days, there was nothing written about chess. See how the game catches on. Once these people do well, more and more youngsters look up to them. After the success of Gavaskar or Tendulkar in cricket, many youngsters want to emulate them. Because of them, enthusiasm builds, you then have media attention, sponsorships and so on.

In the developed countries, you see world-class athletes coming up one after another, at regular intervals but here in India, even after the success of Milkha Singh and P T Usha, we have not had anybody else of their class coming up.

If we go back to the fundamental question, everything has been wrongly done in this country. Usha and Milkha Singh were just a flash!

Do you feel cricket has killed other games?

Yes. And this is because there is more sponsorship in cricket, all cricketers are millionaires. Let me tell you again, if cricket is played by 180 countries, we will be nowhere in the picture.

What made you choose athletics even though you played hockey, cricket and tennis?

I was the opening bowler for the cricket team. I was also captain of my college hockey team. Then I found that I was breaking records in athletics. I couldn't be playing cricket and hockey at the university level and still running at the all India level. So I had to choose.

You chose athletics because you loved running?

I loved cricket, hockey and tennis too. But I happened to be at the top in athletics. So I had to concentrate on athletics.

Is the euphoria one experiences when one runs and wins, a reason for choosing individual sports?

Absolutely. There is that individual sort of feeling you experience, that god has given you some talent and you have exhibited that talent.

Is the feeling much more than what you experience when you play a group game like hockey or cricket?

I wouldn't say so. Even a good cricketer feels the same way when he bats well for the team. It is a desire to do well, whether you are doing it for a team or individually.

Who do you feel is the greatest athlete India has produced?

In my opinion, it is Henry Rebello.

Not P T Usha or Milkha Singh?

We have had athletes like Milkha Singh and P T Usha who have shown great skill, but none was as close to the Olympic medal as Henry Rebello was. He was with me at the 1948 Games. In those days, he did 52 feet -- that is 15.86 metres in the triple jump. There was only one other person who had done 15.86 metres, and that was a man called Da Silva of Brazil.

Both Da Silva and Henry tore their muscles for lack of warming up in London. Henry was just 18 years old and never had any muscle trouble in his life, but tore his hamstring muscle there! Henry would have won a gold or a silver at least were it not for this mishap.

After the Olympics, Da Silva won the gold in the 1952 Helsinki World Championship and also in the 1956 Olympics in the triple jump while Henry came back to India and faded out from athletics. At the moment, he is not very well. In my opinion, he was the best athlete India has produced. I have said so earlier too.

Eric Prabhakar's photographs: Sanjay Ghosh

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