A nation starved of recognition at the world’s prestigious sporting
event is crying and screaming with elation at the achievements of our girls at
Rio Olympics. I have added Dipa Karmakar’s name in the list in the title as her
achievement is no less than that of a world champion as she was one among the
two Finalists in her category to have done the most difficult vault called Produnova.
Losing the medal by just 0.15 points would be tougher than
doing Produnova, and our girl Dipa Karmakar had to swallow that pain. True to
her name (as I assume) she has stood as a Doer – a karma gyani who is not
rattled by the wins or loses, when I read her say, coming fourth means fourth
(place) and that she is happy with the vault she had performed. This kind of
reaction is too odd to hear in the midst so much fuss about winning, winning
and winning.
Winning is of course important, but the kind of temperament
that one has to possess in facing wins and loses is even more important. I am
reminded of a dialogue that comes often in Sundara Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana. It
is – in any war winning or losing is not in one’s hands however capable one may
be and one must be prepared for any of the two (winning or losing) in a war. It
is the same in sporting events too. It is the same in life also – in how we
face the events in life, both good and bad. One has to put up the best
performance that one can, but when results come one must accept it with
equanimity.
I found the same idea mouthed by the Great Sindhu after
losing the Finals. She said that like in life, there will be ups and downs in
sporting events too. She exhibited the finest form of that wisdom of equanimity
in looking calm after losing the Gold and in lifting up Carolina Marin (winner)
from the ground to congratulate her and in picking up the racquet of Marin (who
left it on the ground) and leaving it in her place. It is a class performance
of a champion which Marin didn’t display while playing and even after winning. It
has become a habit for winners to scream and shout on winning. At the same
moment one must think of the other at whose cost, that winning became possible.
A true winner must immediately pat the loser in a gesture that all is not lost
forever and that the loser had indeed did her/ his best. That is the best way a
champion must conduct himself/herself.
The coaches are teaching them how to express their adrenalin-surge
during the course of the game. But the players must be taught how to accept victory
with elegance which cannot happen without an element of equanimity. This does
not mean that we the people who have to cheer them must not exhibit our elation
in all boisterous forms. Our support, cheers and applause are the energisers of
our players, not the selfie comments.
The way our sports people are handling victory and defeat
has a deep story behind. They have gone there with not much support in the
making of their potential. They have gone there knowing very well their
limitations. But we expect them to speak ‘I will win” etc, thinking that it is
how a positive mindset has to be. Sakshi Malik has gone to play from a place
that does not want to see a girl child born. Dipa Karmakar has gone from a practice
session made of crash mats and discarded parts of second hand scooter. Only
Sindhu seems to have had some backing in honing up her skills. But even that
had a background of a Gopichand who was determined to make up for the
inefficiencies that he often suffered.
So the problem why we have not produced world class talent
is because we have not thought of giving importance to the sporting events that
are making headlines for a fortnight now. Except cricket no other form of game
is given importance or even known to common man. The reason is obvious. Media
and publicity have kept up the cricket fever forever.
Another reason is that we as a young nation wishing to rise
up quickly have our priorities elsewhere. We have to feed more than a billion
people, pull them up from poverty and enable them to have access to basic
needs. Only when a family fulfils its basic needs of means of decent living,
can it think of encouraging their children to take up sports as a full time
work. Our policy direction is also such that we want to produce only engineers
and doctors. Or atleast this is the case in Tamilnadu where no other avocation
has been set as a goal for our youth. We believe that education alone can
uplift us and that is also true to a greater extent. We are still at this level
of coming up to some status in life. Once this is fulfilled, people would start
concentrating on sports.
Looking at the men and women taking part in many games in
Olympics, it is obvious that they have a safe living back at home. They are not
starved nor were the facilities lacking for them. By taking up a sport, they
are not having an unstable career or lack the means of living. For a nation of
huge population like ours such guarantees are not there. So far whoever had
made it big, were driven by their passion for the game overriding all difficulties.
Such a situation cannot produce sports talents in a larger scale.
In this situation private participation can bring out
results in the immediate future. I think of the Indian Cricket board and the wealthy Film
stars as best patrons to make this happen. The BCCI is like Trimala-Tirupathi
Devasthanam in having good flow of funds. The Devasthanam is doing a lot by way
of helping poorly kept temples to renovate and maintain pujas. Likewise, the
rich BCCI can set up training academies for as many kinds of sporting events as
possible and maintain them.
Attracting talent can happen region-wise. For example our
best swimmers can be identified from the fishermen community. Genetically and locationally,
the kids in the fishing hamlets can be seen to be adept in swimming, something
I have noticed near Rameswaram. Swimming academies must be set up near such
places to enable them to try and hone up their skills in swimming. Traditionally
our country has had a variety of talents like this. As we can see in Sakshi,
best wrestlers come from Haryana and Rajasthan – the location of Pushkar where Olympic
like events were held during
Mahabharata times.
Like BCCI, film stars are the richest in the country and they
can take initiatives to provide facilities and attract talent to train them up.
Salman Khan has taken the lead in this regard. Perhaps exposure to wrestling in
his film Sultan had
enabled him to appreciate the difficult practice sessions that the sports
persons have to undergo. He had come forward to donate a lakh rupees to each one
of the Indian contingent that had participated in Rio Olympics. Other film
celebrities also must come forward to do something like him to encourage
sportsmen and promote sports.
Today the focus is only on the winners. Imagine the rest of
the Indian contingent, they too had dedicated a considerable part of their
lives to training in their respective sports; but not lucky to clinch the
titles. What is awaiting them back home? Would they concentrate on another bout
of practice to get qualified for another event or look for venues to earn a
living? As long as this dilemma is real, we cannot see more medallists in
future events.
