Tread in Style

There were 13 goals of the highest quality in the 112th Indian Open Polo Championship final at the Jaipur Polo Grounds on Sunday. But the one that raised the metaphorical roof was scored by industrialist and MP Naveen Jindal, captain and patron of Team Jindal Steel & Power. The quality of this solo effort warmed the hearts of aficionados while the very fact that it was scored by Jindal had his supporters — many of who had come all the way from his constituency Kurukshetra to watch him in action — up on their feet.

Spotted among the spectators were External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh, MP Yashodhara Raje Scindia with son Akshay Bhansali, French Ambassador François Richier, author Mark Tully, artist Jatin Das, model Monikangana Dutta, socialites Ayesha Thapar and Charu Sachdev.

At the tread-in ceremony, when the spectators stepped out on the field during half-time to level the divots, two strata of the society — the farmers from Kurukshetra in their ethnic turbans and the socialites from Delhi wearing expensive hats — converged on the ground. The polo final clearly had a broader appeal than usual.

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