WALMIKI BACK IN MUMBAI AFTER MONTHS IN NETHERLANDS
Devindar Walmiki was yearning to return to India, but had no real plans as such. Stuck in the Netherlands to play their hockey league--which was called off in April--for premier division club HGC since February, Walmiki did not mind being in a country with more safety and relaxations than India currently.
However, a personal family issue forced him to change his mind and come back home, after all. On Thursday evening, after booking a ticket in the morning, the 28-year-old took off in a direct Amsterdam-mumbai Air India flight operating under the special Vande Bharat Mission. Walmiki landed in Mumbai at 5.30am on Friday, and has since checked into The Lalit hotel for a sevenday quarantine stay.
“There, I got used to living a life without masks. After landing here, I am realising how totally different it is,” Walmiki, who was part of India’s 2016 Rio Olympics squad, said. “Compared to India, things are far better in Holland. I was able to train there and everything was going well. But I had to come down due to a problem in the family,” Walmiki said.
Midfielder Walmiki stayed with India’s 2016 Junior World Cup-winning captain Harjeet Singh and other players from Australia, Argentina, Japan and France in an apartment in Wassenaar, a suburb in The Hague. Apart from physical workout sessions in his apartment, Walmiki resorted to writing daily notes, reading books, cooking new dishes and conducting online classes for budding players in Mumbai under Merzban Patel, Walmiki’s childhood coach, over these last few months.
Walmiki has to fly back to the Netherlands next month to join his club in preparations for the next season starting September.