Sreejesh’s family at Kerala’s Kizhakkambalam gather to celebrate second Olympic bronze over unni appams | Hockey News

As seconds tick , a wave of anxiety clutches P Raveendran. His big bright eyes wander to the wall-mounted grandfather clock, before he reconfirms the time on his mobile phone screen. The first half of the day had breezed along—he had gone to the airport to pick his eldest son Sreejith, coming home after five years. But the second half is meandering along to the promised hour, that is 5.30 pm, when his youngest son PR Sreejesh turns up for his country for the one last time. “I am always nervous before his games, but this time I am ever more, maybe because it is his last game, and might not experience it ever in my life,” he says, staring past the window panes reeking of fresh paint and into the courtyard, where a hunched rambutan tree is swaying in the mild breeze.This afternoon, he says, is different from all other evenings. Longer and tenser. “A chapter ends in our life,” he says with a mix of pride, pain and relief. “Though reality has not sunk in yet. For the past 20 years we have seen him more on TV than at home. Now we could finally spend some time at home,” he says, although he worries he would soon take up a coaching gig and leave home. “We often joke, he visits us like the Maveli (the mythical demon king) during Onam, but for parents the Onam or Vishu is when the children are at home,” he says.
Sreejesh father Raveendran with brother Sreejith (Credit: Sandip G)
Sreejesh’s wife Aneeshya chimes in: “I don’t know how it is to see him as a retired sportsman. From the day I first met him, he has been a sportsman,”she says, peels of giggles echoing the dining hall. They were classmates at the GV Raja Sports School in Thiruvananthapuram. “He was the class topper and in the ninth standard, she came and began competing with him,” the father says. Love blossomed—Raveendran thought this was a passing infatuation of the teenager. “But he exceeded my expectations. I was happy when they decided to marry because their bond would be so strong to last 13 years,” he says.
Unlike Raveendran, Aneeshya has little time to meditate on the sluggish arms of the tick-tocking clock. She has to manage a herd of children—her own pair, three of Sreejesh’s brother, and those of the extended family, who have come to watch the game together. “It’s fun and a big mess too,” she says, as one of them zips off on a skating board. Sreejesh’s mother, Usha, is busy in the kitchen, mixing the dough for her son’s favourite snack, unni appam (sweet rice fritters).
Neighbours—most of them their relatives—jostle in and out of the house, asking whether Sreejesh, fondly called Kannan, had called them, or if he was nervous and that typical irritating query: “What’s his next plan? Is he going to revive the farms?”
Sreejesh calls his parents before every match. Often it turns out into a conference call, with the brother and his children too dropping . He has not called yet, and Raveendran fidgets his thumb along the phone screen. Every time it buzzes, his heart pounds and eyes sparkle. No, no not him this time and he brusquely cuts the calls. His eyes light up. The name Kannan flashes on the screen and he rushes inside to call Sreejith for a private family video chat. As though a siren has blared, those in the house throng in front of the tiny screen of love.
Trophies and medals at Sreejesh’s Kizhakkambalam home. (Credit: Sandip G)
The last time Raveendran has seen his house this vibrant was during the childhood years of his sons. Sreejith can’t res guffawing. “We used to turn this house upside down, playing, fighting, playing music, fighting for the remote control. Loads of nostalgia. Can’t wait to see him after five long years,” says Sreejith, settled in Canada as a real estate agent. His youngest son has seen his uncle only through video calls. “For him every bearded man on the TV is his uncle. The other day he saw Virat Kohli and then suddenly began shouting Kannan chittapan (father’s younger brother),” he says.
They have never played hockey—but a lot of cricket with cousins. “Perhaps it has helped him (Sreejesh) in that he learned to be tough playing with boys older than him. Hockey, I must confess I didn’t know it until he started playing it,” he says.
There was no hockey in Kerala; the presence is still scant. There is a lone astroturf in the entire state, built as recent as 2014 for the National Games. Their shirts don’t peer from the ceiling of shops; sports shops, even in big cities, seldom stock hockey sticks and gears. His native Kizhakkambalam is a village in the guise of a town. The narrow road, aptly named Olympian Sreejesh Road, that winds past his house, transports you back in time to the rustic charms of countryside life. Paddy fields, waiting for the harvest, ambles far into the horizon. Brooks and rivulets slither along like slumberous snakes.
The agriculture forebears of the Sreejesh household is evident. A traditional brass nelpara (large cylindrical bowl to keep rice) is proudly displayed in the visitor’s hall. “We are proud sons of the soil. Behind Sreejesh’s growth is the sweat and mud of the field. Kannan too used to help us during the harvest season,” says Ravindra, who has stopped cultivating paddy after a heart attack four years ago. He points to his chest: “Full of stents.”
The narrow road, aptly named Olympian Sreejesh Road, that winds past his house, transports you back in time to the rustic charms of countryside life. (Credit: Sandip G)
To the ears of the hardened farmer, the game with a crooked stick hardly struck a chord. “Especially in that era (late 90s). I was skeptical, because I had never heard of anyone getting a job through sports quota playing hockey. At that time we had not even the faintest idea that he would be an international player. But I let it be, let life take its course,” he says. It did, taking Sreejesh along 329 senior international games, numerous league games, a showcase stacked with medals, the most glittering the gold from Asian Games in 2022 and the bronze medal from the 2021 Olympics. A second Olympic bronze would squeeze for space.
He claims he was an unfussy parent, who seldom interfered in his son’s sport. He remembers the only time he did with fondness. “He got into the junior selection camp in 2003-04. A friend of mine told me that if I talk to O Rajagopal (then a central miner) he could recommend him and get into the team. I conveyed this to him and he shot back at me and told me, “If I get into the team through recommendation, they will pick me once and then drop. Don’t worry, a time will come when miners will knock on our doors,” he recollects.
Though he didn’t understand the game, and at times cynical, he always supported. He was reminded of one such incident when he took a stroll along the empty cattle shed. “Once I went to buy a hockey kit, The shopkeeper told me it costs Rs 10,000. All I had was Rs 3,000. I didn’t hesitate, and sold a dairy cow,” he says.

The old stories warmed his heart, but the hands of the clocks were still walking heavily. “Sometimes you get anxious for no reason. I’m sure he will come back with the bronze,” he said. So Sreejesh did, but a long and storied chapter in Indian hockey and Raveendran’s household ended, leaving both the country and family immensely content. But the hands of the wall-mounted clock would never meander along as sluggishly as it had on Thursday for Raveendran.