Smile amidst a storm

A positive attitude has helped India's star goalkeeper P R Sreejesh in tackling a serious injury

It was the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia, first tournament of the new Olympic cycle, in May this year. Up against the mighty Australians, India were keen on proving a point. The manner in which they started the game, it looked they were on course for something special.

But as the first quarter neared its end, little did they know what was in store. One of the key players’ in the side, goalkeeper P R Sreejesh, was in good form keeping the Kookaburras at bay. But even he didn’t expect that an attempt to thwart a charging Eddie Ockenden on the far post would prove disastrous.

“At that moment I didn’t realise what had happened. I just wanted to continue,” says Sreejesh, four months later, about an injury that didn’t seem to be serious at that time. “I was slower than usual to get up, but then that didn’t bother me much. It was only when I went in to the dugout at the break that I felt something odd.”

Akash Chikte was soon put in place of Sreejesh for the rest of the game and then the tournament as the Indian skipper headed for some tests that confirmed the extent of the injury. As some experts suggested, he had sustained an injury to his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

It was the first time Sreejesh had suffered an injury of this magnitude. “I really didn’t know what to expect. Will I be fine, back to being myself or will things change? I was blank,” admits the Indian goalkeeper, acknowledged as among the best in the business.

“So the best thing to do was to head back and get all possible advice from people around you and work on it. There’s no point in thinking over it or sulking about it. That’s not me. That’s not who Sreejesh is,” he says with a sense of calmness.

So it was no surprise when the 29-year-old followed his doctor’s advice and opted to go for a surgery to fix his knee. “I called a few physiotherapists and took their advice and all had the same thing to say — get it fixed, get a surgery done so that it doesn’t relapse. And since this year we don’t have any major competition, I decided to go ahead with it,” he explains.

The surgery went well and Sreejesh was back in his hospital room a few hours later, following India’s performance at the World League Semifinal but a bigger test awaited him — the rehabilitation.

He had heard about the tough routine from others and ‘extensively researched’ about it but his way of dealing with it was different. He did a very Sreejesh-thing — enjoying it in a very Sreejesh way, with tons of laughter, jokes and a lot of fun. “That’s the only way I know to live life. I am not a person who would sit in a corner and cry ‘Oh God, why me? Why did this happen to me?’ I want to live in the moment and enjoy as much as I could and learn from it. And the days gone by taught me a lot.

“Till now I was living in a bubble, a hockey bubble. I didn’t know what life was outside this bubble. There is a life outside hockey, there are things outside this world that I am good at, and this realisation hit me now. I was completely away from the side, in Delhi, undergoing my rehab. It was different out there. It taught me different aspects of life.

“Like, I learnt so much about muscles. This is how injuries happen. Which muscles were treated, what you should do when you have an ACL injury. How you go about doing your rehab, what precautions should be taken to avoid this in future and so on. Moreover, with Biru (Birendra Lakra) and Rupinder (Pal Singh) for company (who were undergoing rehab for different injuries), we brought the house down,” he states.

For Sreejesh, this was also the time that he got to spend with his family, a luxury an athlete at his level barely gets to enjoy. “I don’t know when was the last time I spent so much time at home while the season was on,” he says.

“They would help me with my diet chart, I got the juices on time, dad used to go to the market and get me fruits, mom ensured the food didn’t have much masala or sugar to help me control my body weight. Then it was around this time that our son was born, so even that was a distraction. I was engaged with him and that helped me stop thinking about the injury. Then I was there for his naming ceremony. Well, when we had our daughter I was there for three days and next time I saw her, she was three months old. This time I was with our son for a month. I think everything, even this injury, happens for a good cause.”

Back on his feet, Sreejesh joined the national camp in August and engaged himself with the younger goalkeepers. In helping them perfecting the skills, he says he was training himself. “I look at as training myself. Watching a video or reading about it isn’t as helpful as when you’re out on the field. And that’s what I was doing out there,” he says.

“Every time I tell the young ’keepers something, I am reminding myself of things I have to do when I take the field, and I think that is a good way of learning.”

With the high performance director David John stating Sreejesh would miss out on the whole year, the Indian team is preparing for a season without their ace player. But the man from Kerala, who started his on-field training last week, doesn’t want to think about it yet.

“I don’t know how difficult it (the come back) will be. I am a person who prefers to live in the moment. I haven’t thought about it. Right now the target is to get back to the level I was at. For that I have started with the initial steps. Let’s see how far can I go. This might be the end of my career or I might just be starting my best days an Indian player.”