Hockey Wizard Major Dhyan Chand scores in Berlin again

On 15th August 2016, while the rest of the world celebrates the 70th Independence Day of India, the Embassy of India, Berlin has a special reason to cheer. An unique exhibition on the life and times of hockey wizard major Dhyan Chand will be inaugurated on the same day at the Embassy premises.

2          The exhibition will be inaugurated by Ambassador Gurjit Singh and Madam Neeru Singh. They will be accompanied by German Olympians Natascha Keller and her brother Florian Keller. Their grandfather Erwin Keller had played against the Indian hockey team in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Natascha Keller herself has been a member of the German Women’s hockey team which won an Olympic Gold Medal in 2004. She was the flag bearer for Germany at the 2012 Summer Olympics, becoming the first female field hockey athlete being honored this way. Her brother, Florian Keller was also a part of the German national hockey team, which won the Gold Medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Three Hon’ble MPs- Mr Peter Stein, Ms Kathrin Vogler and Mr Johannes Selle, the Chief of Protocol from the German Foreign Office, Mr Jürgen Mertens and the mayor of Rothenburg, Mr Dieter Kölle are also expected to join the event.

3          For the first time ever, besides pictures of his on-field wizardry, several honors received by Major Dhyan Chand and his personal artifacts will be on display for an Indo-German crowd. These include his Olympic coat and tie, his spectacles, several personal framed pictures and original recordings of training sessions and the Olympic Final in Berlin 1936. The exhibition will also show copies of German Newspaper articles about the Indian team from the media coverage of the Olympics in Berlin. Among the pictures displayed in the exhibition will be the photograph of a 30-foot statue his fans have built atop a hill in his hometown Jhansi; photos of his meetings with Shri B.R. Ambdekar, Shri C. Rajagopalachari and Smt Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. The exhibition will also display the commemorative postage stamp which the postal department had brought out on December 4, 1980.

4          The bilingual exhibition is scheduled to run for a month and is open to the public on all working days between 14.00 – 16.00 hrs.  Interested individuals may pre-register at info@indianembassy.de

5          The Embassy of India, Berlin has been continuously reaching out to eminent sports people to enhance their engagement with them. The recent reception held for Abhinav Bindra on July 16th 2016 ,the encouragement to the Indian Para-Olympic contingent and the exhibition on the life and times of Major Dhyan Chand are some of the examples.