Kapil Dev to Prakash Padukone: Meet India's first gamechangers
Ahead of the release of Ranveer Singh's '83', a film on India's pathbreaking cricket World Cup victory, Forbes India looks at the journeys of sportspeople who flipped the switch for India on the global stage
Curated By: Kathakali Chanda, Madhu Kapparath
Orphaned during the Partition violence of 1947, Milkha Singh brought home gold medals from the 1958 Asian and Commonwealth Games, and came agonisingly close to an Olympic medal, missing out by one-tenth of a second, at the 1960 Games in Rome. Now 91, Singh recalls the words of his friend and hockey wizard Dhyan Chand, who would practise hitting 500 balls through a tyre every day. "It's the same with me. I practised like there's no tomorrow, and often I would vomit blood and had to be put on oxygen."
