SAWAI PADMANABH SINGH LEADING THE POLO RENAISSANCE

After languishing on the sidelines for years, polo is having a moment in the sun, thanks to the conscious efforts of the young scion from Jaipur, who wants to restore the glory that was once inherent to the game

- By Ravi Raj

The vast collection of trophies, memorabilia, and sepia-toned pictures of the great polo teams of the past, some led by his forefather Sawai Man Singh II, formed a vibrant background of Sawai Padmanabh Singh's formative years in Jaipur. Once he was fiddling with a wooden box he found on a coffee table, thinking of it as just another artefact from the past, but when he opened it, he found "a souvenir from a famous Jaipur team that went touring the world in 1957, and it had the signatures of all four players and a list of everything they'd won". Yet these tales of glory of that famous Jaipur team, and their exploits across the world, belonged to a distant past, standing in stark contrast to the present, when the game has been pushed to obscurity. Padmanabh took this task of reconciliation of the glorious past and nonexistent present upon himself, by building the polo scene from scratch, not just in Jaipur but beyond it. He currently serves as an ambassador of the Asian Zone for the Federation of International Polo. What separates Padmanabh from the other promoters of the sport is that the fact he does not merely observe the action from the sideline, but is often seen out there on the turf, settled on a horse, whipping his polo stick, battling it out for the Jaipur Polo team. His presence in the team obviously raises the allure of any tournament. His effort to restore its glory is still in its infancy, but some promising strides have already been taken. The Jaipur Polo season returned to the calendar for the first time in a decade, and there's at least six months of competitive polo season in the country, and talents from across the world come to participate. In an exclusive conversation with Man's World India, Padmanabh spills beans on his love affair with polo, his plans for democratising the sport, and his unease with polo being labelled as a royal sport, among other things: