Negi's gloom-to-glory story

The travails and triumphs of former India hockey goalkeeper Mir Ranjan Negi, whose stint as a coach in the game he played with distinction was depicted in the Bollywood hit movie Chak De India, have been chronicled in his autobiography.

Negi's book From Gloom to Glory, which he noted at the book signing function on Tuesday as the culmination of having maintained diary notes and scrap books right through his career, captures the real life story of the former player's fight against odds.

"I cannot forget the media. It was the media that plunged me in gloom and it was the media that brought me glory," he said at the function.

Negi was the hapless Indian goalkeeper and was pilloried in the media following the humiliating 1-7 defeat arch-foes Pakistan in the 1982 Asian Games final at Delhi.

The coach of the 1998 Asian Games-winning women's team, a superintendent in the customs department, also said that the proceeds from the sales of the book would be ploughed back into the national game's development.

The book, whose foreword has been written by Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. who played the character inspired by Negi's life in the film Chak De India, is published by Popular Prakashan.