Humiliating Shambles

The writing is almost there on the wall; a land of a billion people will have to do with just a few grams of gold once again and if this is not enough, also bear the agonizing pain of watching our fellow neighbor – with almost the same enormity when it comes to numbers as us – sweep the laurels at the biggest stage of them all, The Olympics.

Wasn’t the aforementioned the voice of our cynical nation? At an hour when we should applaud the gallant efforts of our athletes for bringing home the beacon, we are criticizing and belittling their work for getting us too little. Before putting across your expert opinion on India’s poor show just ask yourself, what have you done for the country?

I was taken aback and infuriated when I saw status updates of people rebuking the hockey team, talking loudly about the national shame which the national game brought us. People who I think might not even know what it is like to hold a hockey stick in their hands, people who can recall the ‘Indian cricket team’ of the 80s; but for some reason are oblivious of our hockey captain were raising fingers at the players. The question is, are they intellectual enough to make commentary on the status quo? What gives them the authority to criticize people who have given their lives to the sport amidst ever mounting pressure of feeding their families?

Our biggest problem as a nation is – we believe that all we are required to do as citizens of our country is to vote and then the government will do everything for us. The team loses, sack the coach. If the same thing repeats itself, remove the skipper. This is what we have done and noticed all our lives, blamed the people in control and later penalized them. How about taking a dip in the muddy water for once? How about taking the onus on ourselves?

In a country obsessed with its IITs and IIMs it is just not hard, but impossible to nurture a breed of sportsmen who can win medals for us at the grandest stage of all. We might call ourselves a global sports spectator nation, but as a sporting nation we have not made any progress. We still force our kids to join a below-par college even when all he wants to do is to play football, we still haven’t been able to broaden our mindset to that level where we can actually foresee people making a flourishing career in sports. An exceptional sportsman with an average academic record still invites disdain in this country.

Our folly can be judged from the fact that we lost the world’s youngest marathon runner – Budhia Singh- to politics. It is time we share the blame. It is our country, let’s take its responsibility.

We are not short of talent and we have never been that way, we just need to realize that it takes a great deal of grooming to take that talent to its required performing level. And if we are still not willing to give up our traditional outlook and continue giving step child treatment to sports then it’s better to learn to keep our mouths shut and appreciate the efforts of people who go out there carrying the mantle of a nation which will party with you in celebration but show its back when you’re down.

If the Americans had made the rabbit-eared boy solve calculus problems rather than swim, the world would have not seen a Phelps. And so, before we are ready to invest in sports and give this field the respect it commends, we can’t expect the Indian tortoise to catch up with the Chinese hare.

P.S. Haven’t lost the optimist in me yet, a few grams of gold is all that it needs to lift a nation.