Curtains have fallen on the Olympic
Games in London, 2012. A spectacular Ending ceremony was the crowning
glory of the greatest sporting event on Earth. Indian contingent
fought, ended up getting six medals (two silver and four bronze
medals) and showed promise of getting few more medals in the near
future. The country went the Hero way, "Hero Go, India Go".
Like many others I also eagerly followed the developments and posted
in facebook when one of our athletes won a medal. Suddenly we were
finding wrestling interesting and badminton enjoyable.
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| pic source: Sameer Ahmed Photos (Picasa) |
However, this euphoria is short lived.
India loves its cricketers. They are our national heroes and all
corporate support is for them. A good show in national and
international circuit ensures a number of advertisements across
television channels ranging from fairness creams to motorbikes.
Sushil Kumar, Vijay Kumar or a Yogeshwar Dutt, getting a lot of cash
reward after their achievement in Olympics, will go into oblivion
after sometime. We as a nation love to listent to pulsating music
during the cricket matches in IPL and enjoy the game! We like to
watch all the antics of film stars like Shahrukh Khan and cheer
wildly for cricketers like Saurav Ganguly (whether performing or non
performing), Sachin Tendulkar (no more what he used to be), Mahendra
Singh Dhoni (all smiles and all luck) and a number of other stars.
Media in the country love to report over days on the
Harvajan-Sreesanth slap-gate.
As Nirmal Shekar opines in The Hindu,
"Let’s look forward to another wild parade through the streets
of Mumbai with the boys peacocking from an open-top bus.
Let’s unabashedly hail their heroics, throw fresh flowers and
encomiums at them even as my fellow professionals try to pull out
every adjective in their vocabulary to celebrate the great
achievement.
Meanwhile, Mary Kom would probably be
running from pillar to post to find a cooking gas cylinder in
Manipur, Yogeshwar Dutt would be walking to the nearest tea stall in
his hometown, unmolested, his stellar achievement long forgotten.
The peerless Viswanathan Anand’s
fifth world chess title would be a distant memory and he would be
preparing for yet another tournament that nobody cares about even as
Jeev Milka Singh tees off somewhere that nobody has heard of. Birdie
and eagles…well, we haven’t been to a bird sanctuary in a while;
should make it a point to visit one."1
The sad reality of our country is that
we concentrate too much on cricket as other sports get neglected. I
was listening to one anchor in a regional news channel as she
expressed her displeasure on the small number of medals for a country
with such a big population. She was arguing that poor infrastructure
on the part of the government is the main roadblock. Agreeing with
the fact that politics have ruined the prospects of the country and
infrastructure has been poor there is also one big concern. The
Indian mindset has to change. How can we expect great results from
our athletes when we just brush them aside as non entities? Only
during Olympics we find a lot of national spirit and feel
disappointed when Abhinav Bindra fails to qualify. While Virat Kohli
finds a problem of plenty to choose from advertisements, Mary Kom
knows she cannot expect the same.
It is easy to point fingers at
politicians and lament at the present conditions or results.
Politicians are part of the society and it is the reflection of the
society itself on their deeds. What do we do to cheer our athletes
all the year round? We choose to avoid national hockey matches when
they are telecast on television for the excitement of cricket. If a
badminton match of Saina Nehwal can generate TRP's to the level of a
cricket match then gradually corporates will pour in money because
they understand business. Now where from will the TRP come if we
choose to ignore her matches most of the time?
The governmental fund outlay has
improved over what it used to be in the past and the results are
showing in the increasing medal tally. However, for a nation to
compete with giants like U.S.A and China there needs to be strong
public backing behind national athletes. Media can serve a better
purpose if they give these athletes good coverage throughout the
year. Media also have to look into infrastructural deficiencies and
form public opinion for their fast overhaul. They need to report
about new talents and raise voice for more and more corporate
involvement. Cricket is a beautiful game and the power structure
revolves round it, however, it is time that we stop getting
disappointed finding ourselves in 55th spot in the final medal tally
and look within ourselves to feel whether we are doing justice to
other sports apart from cricket in the country. Playing hockey is not encouraged in
schools; badminton, table tennis, chess, wrestling or other sports
are always considered secondary to academics. Talents are lost when
parents pursue a promising badminton player to leave the game for
better prospects in engineering. Cricket, though, is in a different
league because mothers flock with their would be Sachin's, Sourav's,
Dravid's, Dhoni's to cricket coaching centres. They are adamant to
see their children making a century at Lords and soon become the
sought after advertising model. We cannot expect the good when we
ourselves deliver the worst. It is commendable that in spite of being
pushed aside these athletes spring up from nowhere and produce good
results. They are aware that all their valiant deeds for the nation
will be forgotten when Shahrukh Khan will dance to the tunes of a
popular Hindi film number with his Knights, post an IPL match.
1. Nirmal Shekar's Column in The Hindu
retrieved from:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/nirmal_shekar/article3758296.ece?textsize=small&test=2
