bhubaneswar peter kabaso was in india till the start of this week it was his first trip ever to the country and he grabbed attention every time he officiated at the recently concluded fih junior mens hockey world cup for you dont have many umpires from kenya officiating on the international turf peter the only active international fih umpire from kenya currently is keeping that flag flying a defensive midfielder during his playing days in the coastal kenyan city of mombasa peters transition from a player to a coach has an interesting story behind it i went to see some school hockey in mombasa and the umpire who was handling the match was very biased towards the other team making very poor decisions so after the match i went to speak to the umpire and said you are killing the morale of these boys make it fair he told me umpiring isnt very easy if you dont believe me you become an umpire one day go for a course and then we will see how you perform on the pitch recalled peter talking to timesofindiacom on the sidelines of the junior world cup jwc last week in the odisha capitalincidentally before this peters coach at his college had spotted umpiring credentials in him and advised him to enroll for a course at that time peter didnt take it seriously but that incident during the school game changed his viewafter that i asked my coach when the next training course for umpiring will be thats how i started umpiring in mombasa said peterit was this decision that forced him to move from mombasa to the kenyan capital of nairobiphoto hockey indiamy hometown is in mombasa that is where i started my hockey but now i have moved to nairobi because that is where we have an artificial surface astroturf so for the need of turf and to umpire i had to move and relocate to nairobi the 36yearold further told timesofindiacom now in the league of international umpires peter has found his niche having already umpired at the 2018 youth olympics as well as once at the sultan of johor cup the next big step he eyes is umpiring at a senior international eventfor a sport that is largely played dominated and run by the european nations these days peter hasnt found it difficult to find his feet and has never been made to feel left outracism in sport is a reality that all world bodies want to eradicate a number of allegations including that of online racism have been made by players recently including in football and cricket some of those have been proven as wellwhile peter stresses that there is no place for racism in the world he has not found himself at the receiving end of that in his hockey journeyi think the kind of skin is just a colour it doesnt matter if it is black or white skin colour is not a measure of a person