India, Aug. 14 -- They say, "Never meet your heroes." Those people obviously never enjoyed the calming, charming, chuckle-a-minute company of Vece Paes, the winner of an Olympic bronze medal with the India hockey team in Munich 1972 and a doctor of medicine with a pioneering role in the anti-doping initiatives of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), who died in his adopted city of Kolkata on Thursday at the age of eighty.

Except that, leaving aside fans of a certain vintage, of course, Dr. Paes was better known as father to a hero. Indian tennis legend Leander Paes tore up the Davis Cup arena with a series of rousing victories against fancied opponents in the 1990s and emulated his father by winning an Olympic bronze medal i...