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 • My guest this week is the original Kabir Khan (of Chak De India), Mir Ranjan Negi, who didn’t quite fail to score the goal, but paid the price for consuming too many. But right now he is enjoying the fact that India scored just that many goals — seven — in the recent Asian Championships final against South Korea.

It’s something like that now.

• So the joy is back. After 25 long years. Take us back to 1982. What happened? I know everybody talks about the film Chak De India. Take us back to that day at the Asiad finals, when you were the goalkeeper. You were facing one of Pakistan’s finest-ever forward lines. In fact one of the finest-ever forward lines anywhere. Hassan Sardar, Kalimullah . . . they were the best.

It was the first time colour TV arrived. There was multi-camera shooting of the match. When the match started, there was a lot of pressure. The then prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi was there, Rajiv Gandhi, the then president Giani Zail Singh, all the dignitaries. Buta Singh used to visit the Games village every day, tell us so many things . . . that Mrs Gandhi was looking forward to a hockey victory.

• The other seven gold medals we won did not matter.

Slowly, the pressure built up. People used to come to us with prasad every day. There was a lot of pressure from all sides. To make matters worse, even the coaches would tell us, ‘You have to die for your country.’ My roommate was Mohammad Shahid. He couldn’t sleep for two days because of the pressure.

• And Mohammad Shahid was one of the finest forwards ever.

We scored the first goal. It was a penalty stroke by Zafar Iqbal. And then the whole team collapsed. One after another seven goals were scored. Overnight everything was lost.

• Zafar Iqbal actually figures in Chak De India. People only saw the image of you at the goalpost, helpless as seven goals were scored.

After the game, when I saw the footage, I saw the camera going from one direction to the other and maybe there was some editing problem but it showed me in very bad light . . . as if I had left the goalpost and run away.

• The impression was that you were charging too early.

No, they didn’t show me at the goalpost at all. People thought maybe I got scared and left my post. The next day there was talk that I had taken money from Pakistan, that I’d been seen going to the Pakistan High Commission, that somebody saw me coming down the steps of the Pakistan High Commission. So many things were said about me. A Hindi poet wrote a satire about me, there were cartoons about me.

• (Pointing to a newspaper clipping in Negi’s file) What does this say?

It says ‘Bharatiya hockey bik gaya. (Indian hockey has sold out).’

• Suggesting that you had sold out.

The Hindi poet Om Prakash Aaditya wrote this poem about me. (Points to a caricature with the poem, showing a bald Negi) At that time I wasn’t bald.

• It says, ‘Dharti gol, ambar gol, suraj chand sitare gol, goal hua toh hua, main bhi gol’ It goes on to suggest that you had compromised.

I was a victim of this sort of yellow journalism. I felt as if someone very close to me in my family had died. There was absolute silence. I think for two days we did not have any food. We were very scared to come out of the National Stadium.

• You did face shouts of, ‘Gaddar!’

Yes, yes. Everywhere I went. I faced whatever is shown happening to Kabir Khan (in the film).

• You faced more in life.

It was more horrifying than what is shown in the film.

• Give us some examples of what happened.

Two days we did not have food. Then we went to a restaurant near Pandara Road. I was accompanied by some team-mates. Suddenly we were gheraoed by some 50 people who were having a party. They shouted at us, shouted slogans and literally chased us away from the place. We had to forgo our food and go back. My uncle booked a first class ticket for me so that I wouldn’t be troubled. But after I got in, within no time there were 50-100 people outside the compartment shouting slogans. I came to my house in Indore and found all the window panes broken.

• What were they saying?

Maro, paisa khaya hai. Things like that.

• But the theory was: ‘Paisa khaya.’

Yes, that I’d been bribed.

• I think there was a price fixed — one lakh per goal or something?

Yes, one lakh rupees for each goal. Not actually true, but they said things like that. And the media added a lot of fuel to the fire. They said a CBI inquiry was on against me. Even when I was talking to friends in the customs department, where I worked, they would say I was being chased everywhere by the CBI. They would say, ‘Hamarey upar bhi aa jayega (We will be targeted too).’ My life became hell. I even thought of committing suicide. Then my family decided to get me married in 1983. But people’s anger hadn’t diminished. They put out the lights at my marriage reception. Someone took out the main fuse, they removed the main switch. And it was friends with scooters and motorcycles who provided light for the ceremony by turning on the headlights. And this is a fact. It can be confirmed.