Sansarpur

Sansarpur is a village about 8 kilometres east of Jalandhar, in the Cantonment area, that is internationally famous in field hockey circles. It produced 14 Olympic-level hockey players between the 1920s and 1970s — more than any other village in India and probably any village in the world for any team sport. A modest memorial in the centre of the village lists the names and Olympic medals; a hockey academy still operates here.

For a casual visitor there is not much to see beyond the memorial and a small museum, but hockey enthusiasts will find it a meaningful pilgrimage. Get there by auto-rickshaw from the Cantonment; allow an hour. Local schoolboys can often be persuaded to demonstrate the unusual Sansarpur style of stick-work that produced the village's run of Olympic players.

things to do sight
A story
Between 1928 and 1976, fourteen Olympic hockey players were born in this single village of about 5,000 people. Eight of them won gold medals. Locals will tell you the reason is the soft soil of the Bist Doab plain, which made for forgiving practice surfaces — and a tradition of village teams that started in the early 20th century and kept up with the Sansarpur diaspora to Africa and Britain.