Kila Raipur(Ludhiana), Feb 6
It all started with the village team winning a ‘silver cup’ at a hockey tournament in Jalandhar in 1933. Enthused by the success, a groupf of residents came together to host a sports event in the village the next year. Since then, Kila Raipur has not looked back and has organised the event for 78 uninterrupted years now.

The event is almost entirely funded by donations and Grewals residing in all parts of the country and abroad , dutifully chip in with their contributions every year so that the event is held without much support from the government.

Indeed, the government has even failed to cash in on the unique event, which continues to draw spectators from different parts of Punjab. It is not publicised outside the state and it does not figure on the tourist map of the country either. The Games, which has a website (www.ruralolympics.net) thanks to NRI supporters, attracts a sprinkling of foreigners who get to know of it by word of mouth. But many more remain ignorant.

Over the years the villagers have built up a stadium, instituted a hockey tournament and raised money for a trophy, a gold cup weighing a Kilogram and costing Rs 20 lakhs, in the memory of Bhagwant Singh, a promising hockey player of Narangwal village and who died young.

‘‘A few lakhs were received from the government in the form of grants but it was too little compared to the money that has gone into setting up the infrastructure in the village,’’ says Paramjit Singh (62), a veteran hockey player and member of Grewal Sports Association that organizes the event every year.

In 1955, the GSA started athletics and another passionate village resident, Bakhshish Singh, known as founder of Bullock Cart Race, came up with the adrenaline pumping event in 1957.