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Mary makes it, out of the dark...

Overnight, life has changed for Mary Phillips, widow of Olympian hockey player Joe Philips.

The tragedy is that it took a death -- Joe's own -- to bring it about.

Thus, the lady who till just the other day washed her neighbours’ dirty utensils to eke out a living, now finds herself flooded with a host of visitors, all of whom beat a path to her tiny tin-covered shack in a nondescript chawl in Khadki, near Pune.

It is difficult, at first sight, to associate the glitter and glory of the Olympics with the frail, 74-year-old. It needs the few pictures hanging on the wall, the few trophies that remain as reminders of her late husband's glory days, to remind us who, and what, Joe Philips was.

Those pictures, those trophies, also remind you of the shabby way we treat our sports heroes. For the sports fan, for the sports media, it is a case of instant amnesia, as newer idols come along and the older ones are consigned to the dustbin of collective memory.

Joe Philips was part of the Indian hockey team that won the gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, under the eyes of Hitler and his Nazis. Mary married him five years later, in 1941, when the glittering aura still hung around the hockey ace.

That glitter soon vanished. What was left was poverty, heartbreak. Eventually, death for Joe, and a life of destitution for Mary. And, of course, memories -- poignant memories, that brought tears to her tired eyes.

Her sorry saga began when Joe lost his job at the Ordnance Depot, Pune, and began to hit the bottle. Mary recalls, with a tinge of sadness, the times when Joe pledged even his Olympic gold medal in order to ensure that the couple could eat at least one meal a day.

The unsung, uncared for Olympic hero died in 1986, leaving his bankrupt wife with no alternative but to wash neighbours’ dishes to eke out a living of some sort.

While another Olympian from Khadki, Pune -- Nimal Baburao N -- who played alongside Joe in the 1936 Berlin Olympics was lucky enough to be provided with a pension of Rs 2,000 a month, six decades later, by the Sports Authority of India, Joe had died before the scheme was introduced for Indian internationals. Sadly, no one bothered to inquire if his wife Mary required any assistance.

Mary said Joe received only Rs 5,000 from the Maharashtra government after he was conferred the Shiv Chchatrapathi Maharashtra State award in 1985. A year later, Joe died.

It was 12 years later that the media, which once forgot Joe, finally made amends. Following the publication of news reports highlighting her plight, Puneites have joined hands to donate money to make her old age more comfortable. And the government, whether actuated by compassion or with an eye to earning public relations brownie points, has also stepped into the breach.

The first sign of changed fortunes came in dramatic fashion. “It was a miracle of a sort when a man walked into my house and handed over Rs 500 in cash, promising a similar amount every month”, Mary said, breaking into a rare smile. She said the man did not reveal his name, but told her not to worry as he would come every month with the amount to help her out.

Almost simultaneously, Inderman Singh, chairman of the Priyadarshani High School, Bhosari, Pune, felicitated Mary and handed over a cheque of Rs 700 for the month of July, while promising that she would receive a similar sum every month.

Mary, struggling to digest all this, was further flabbergasted when Vinod Dua, managing director of the Pune-based pharmaceutical company Omnicure Mediament Pvt Ltd, handed over Rs 1000 in cash to Mary.

“Please open an account in a nearby bank as every month, someone from my office will come home and hand over a cheque of a similar amount”, he told the widow.

Mary Philips, it must be mentioned here, can speak only two languages, Hindi and her mother tongue, Tamil.

“I can hardly believe it, God is at last hearing my anguished cry and reaching out to console and help me out through these good samaritans”, Mary said. “I really hope I do not have to continue to wash my neighbours’ dishes and die as a beggar”, she added, wiping away a tear.

All three of the samaritans were responding to the news reports.

“It was a heart-rending story, that the widow of an Olympic hero had been reduced to such abject penury," said Dua, who had visited her along with his staff. "I just could not resist reaching out to her -- after all, her husband had brought honour and glory to the country by winning the gold in the Olympics, it is the responsibility of us all to ensure that his memory be honoured."

The government, which never acts until prodded, stepped into the picture when Federal Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Uma Bharti spoke to Mary on the phone, from New Delhi, to announce a grant of Rs 25,000.

The minister further enquired into her living conditions and, on learning that Mary lived in a two-room shack, promised to secure for her a decent flat to live in.

“The Minister wanted to talk to Mary, and so we picked her up from her shanty house in a car and brought her to our office, so that Uma Bharti could talk to her. They spoke for a long time," recalls Vijay Deshmukh, deputy director at the Pune-based Directorate of Sports and Youth Services, Maharashtra.

Mary said she was happy to talk to the woman minister, as a woman would understand her plight better, and do something about it. “I have been begging the state and Union governments for a small pension to meet my basic daily needs in my old age, but there had been no response”, Mary said. “It would be such a nice thing to die peacefully in your own home, isn’t it?” she asked, while expressing the hope that the government would find her a new home soon.

“I am old now, and I do not keep good health. The government should realize this and shift me soon to a new house as Bharti has promised," she added.

The state government, meanwhile, has sanctioned Rs 1,000 as pension, every month, the cheques to be handed over to her under Deshmukh's aegis. The deputy director further added that the sports directorate had also forwarded her case to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) recommending a monthly pension of Rs 2,000 from that body as well.

The proposal for housing her in a decent flat would also be processed by the state government soon, Deshmukh added.

Meanwhile Ramesh Pillay, representative of the Bombay Hockey Association, has also handed over Rs 5,000 to Mary. Pune-based Harry Anthony, chairman of the Maharashtra Hockey Association, is busy arranging an exhibition hockey match to raise funds for the widow. “We are contacting the old time players to arrange the game and do our bit for the widow”, he said.