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Author:Sundaram, S
Project Manager Bombay
Project Manager Bombay
The great Indian dream - Olympic Gold
It is the time of
the decade when the sporting world gets together with all fun and
frolic to celebrate mankind and it's prowess to excel in the arena of
physical exertion and physical prowess.
As a competition, this spectacle has morphed into a technical one-upmanship, where the individual with the best technique and of course training, will come out the winner.
But still, a lot depends ON THE MOMENT.
How an individual performs at the spur of the moment - that's what Olympics are all about, in fact, that is what LIFE is all about.
So months of training that athletes undergo, is not the training for the physical fitness and technique, but it is all towards training of the mind.
the mind - which is the force behind the Javelin
the mind - which is the balance of arrow
the mind - which is the bulls eye for the rifle
the mind - which is the twist in the sync swimming
It is this mind, that is getting trained, by each and every individual who wants to bring glory, at a basal level first to himself or herself, the self victory, which in turn brings laurels to the nation, which will take the credit for the individual's performance.
Let's talk about India here now. We have seen, read and heard innumerable times, that in our country, the sports facilities were not being provided by the government for aspiring sportsperson. This was probably true till about the 80s.
There were facilities, in those times, that were probably ill kept, but most often also used sparingly due to some self interests.
This thus, didn't inspire more people to enter the sports arena as actively as they probably wanted to, barring the need to get a job through the sports quota.
I myself have been part of school teams, playing basketball, cricket, football, volleyball, which in the 80s were at school levels played as tournaments.
We had sufficient facilities, though technically not the best, but they were there to inspire students to take up playing. And there were coaches, or should I say teachers, who doubled up as 'coaches' to get their school teams on the field and get them to win.
I must say in my school team, I have had absolutely brilliant basketball players, students who probably did nothing but practice after school, because the balls were given to them to practice and we had a discipline to use the resources carefully.
So why, in such scenarios did we fail to produce more numbers in sports in the years to come?
The issue lies both with the promoters and with the participators. And both need to get their act together to make a winning combination.
Sports as a medium for the healthy growth of a nation should be considered very highly by the governance. I am not sure if this is the case in our nation - even after so many years of independence. (This is aside from the phenomenon of promotion through media, an act which has just taken roots lately)
The promotion as a healthy activity calls for the basic promotion of sports at school and college levels and some 'serious selections' that need to happen from the individuals who show the ability to perform well.
Serious selections means a-political, and merit based selection where a sports authority run either by the state or a private body should send talent scouts to pick up potentials, give them options for continuing sports and help them manage their education - a process that the US follows to some extent.
Now comes the participator's duty.
I must digress to point out a very embarassing fact of our nation - that has probably been psycho-profiled too, that we Indians basically are very lazy.
When I say we Indians, I refer to the masses in general, not the upper crust of the society which has access to clubs and courses where they display their sport prowess under the confines of richly paid membership.
And this personality trait of being lazy is very easily understandable - in fact, it is an acquired trait.
Given the tremendous stress that each individual lives, caused mostly by their struggle to make both ends meet, negotiating the numerous conflicts due to bureaucracy and lack of a corruption free system to get the daily work done, people have nothing else to think about but how to get their daily needs met. the nation's development and economic model had traditionally had never directed individuals to work hard to earn to spare for sport activities.
All this led them to ignore the aspects of their physical well being by spending time for activities that involve team play, or even individual physical improvement.
If you start thinking about these factors, you can imagine how
impoverished on all fronts we have been as a nation - which always had the numbers but never the notion.
Given these factors, we have all somehow turned into a nation of lazy individuals who get high chewing tobacco, smoking bidis and cigarettes, eating paan and spitting around.
This left the growing tribe of middle class Indians to carry the mantle of not just getting educated to progress the right way ahead, but also to take up additional activities and interests, which included playing some kind of sport - either because it was available to them easily or because their parents realized the need for and encouraged the children to participate.
With such a scenario playing out in this nation of numbers, including the political environment in the sporting associations where sport was more of a reason to show off ones social status (which is still true) than for the sake of the sport, Indians have really not taken to sport in a huge way.
Today, when hockey was highlighted on Indian cinema, the media went ga-ga over it, there was some spark for revival - people said - but the scenario at sports facilities still remains the same.
Coming to mention Abhinav Bindra - I would re-iterate my first point. It is an achievement for the individual first, for it was his own finance that went into building his home shooting range where he has practiced more often (though probably the respective sports federation also would have contributed well), than having used state provided facilities. So the victory is of the mind that has been trained so hard to achieve it's goal.
The nation will take pride for it eventually, for that is what the politically inclined organizers would have in mind.
But we have to stop going ga-ga over this event. It is a very serious trap we will fall into if we bask in the glory of this event, as the media will make it seem now...
The need is to not bask in this glory forever, but to use this as a message, at every level that the mind of individuals should be allowed to nurture their dream, train, and develop their skills in one or the other sport, so that they can use to participate at the National level and go to the world stage.
Instead of allowing the politicians to hijack this event to promote their good, we as citizens need to recognize our kids' potentials and ensure that there are serious attempts to join forces together to provide for suitable training facilities, at city levels, colony levels so that everyone can participate in the sport of their choice and based on true merit grow into National level players.
Only then, our growing population numbers can really stand up to what each individual's true internal potential is
And maybe the big Olympic dream of more than 2-3 individual Gold medals can really come true for India.
As a competition, this spectacle has morphed into a technical one-upmanship, where the individual with the best technique and of course training, will come out the winner.
But still, a lot depends ON THE MOMENT.
How an individual performs at the spur of the moment - that's what Olympics are all about, in fact, that is what LIFE is all about.
So months of training that athletes undergo, is not the training for the physical fitness and technique, but it is all towards training of the mind.
the mind - which is the force behind the Javelin
the mind - which is the balance of arrow
the mind - which is the bulls eye for the rifle
the mind - which is the twist in the sync swimming
It is this mind, that is getting trained, by each and every individual who wants to bring glory, at a basal level first to himself or herself, the self victory, which in turn brings laurels to the nation, which will take the credit for the individual's performance.
Let's talk about India here now. We have seen, read and heard innumerable times, that in our country, the sports facilities were not being provided by the government for aspiring sportsperson. This was probably true till about the 80s.
There were facilities, in those times, that were probably ill kept, but most often also used sparingly due to some self interests.
This thus, didn't inspire more people to enter the sports arena as actively as they probably wanted to, barring the need to get a job through the sports quota.
I myself have been part of school teams, playing basketball, cricket, football, volleyball, which in the 80s were at school levels played as tournaments.
We had sufficient facilities, though technically not the best, but they were there to inspire students to take up playing. And there were coaches, or should I say teachers, who doubled up as 'coaches' to get their school teams on the field and get them to win.
I must say in my school team, I have had absolutely brilliant basketball players, students who probably did nothing but practice after school, because the balls were given to them to practice and we had a discipline to use the resources carefully.
So why, in such scenarios did we fail to produce more numbers in sports in the years to come?
The issue lies both with the promoters and with the participators. And both need to get their act together to make a winning combination.
Sports as a medium for the healthy growth of a nation should be considered very highly by the governance. I am not sure if this is the case in our nation - even after so many years of independence. (This is aside from the phenomenon of promotion through media, an act which has just taken roots lately)
The promotion as a healthy activity calls for the basic promotion of sports at school and college levels and some 'serious selections' that need to happen from the individuals who show the ability to perform well.
Serious selections means a-political, and merit based selection where a sports authority run either by the state or a private body should send talent scouts to pick up potentials, give them options for continuing sports and help them manage their education - a process that the US follows to some extent.
Now comes the participator's duty.
I must digress to point out a very embarassing fact of our nation - that has probably been psycho-profiled too, that we Indians basically are very lazy.
When I say we Indians, I refer to the masses in general, not the upper crust of the society which has access to clubs and courses where they display their sport prowess under the confines of richly paid membership.
And this personality trait of being lazy is very easily understandable - in fact, it is an acquired trait.
Given the tremendous stress that each individual lives, caused mostly by their struggle to make both ends meet, negotiating the numerous conflicts due to bureaucracy and lack of a corruption free system to get the daily work done, people have nothing else to think about but how to get their daily needs met. the nation's development and economic model had traditionally had never directed individuals to work hard to earn to spare for sport activities.
All this led them to ignore the aspects of their physical well being by spending time for activities that involve team play, or even individual physical improvement.
If you start thinking about these factors, you can imagine how
impoverished on all fronts we have been as a nation - which always had the numbers but never the notion.
Given these factors, we have all somehow turned into a nation of lazy individuals who get high chewing tobacco, smoking bidis and cigarettes, eating paan and spitting around.
This left the growing tribe of middle class Indians to carry the mantle of not just getting educated to progress the right way ahead, but also to take up additional activities and interests, which included playing some kind of sport - either because it was available to them easily or because their parents realized the need for and encouraged the children to participate.
With such a scenario playing out in this nation of numbers, including the political environment in the sporting associations where sport was more of a reason to show off ones social status (which is still true) than for the sake of the sport, Indians have really not taken to sport in a huge way.
Today, when hockey was highlighted on Indian cinema, the media went ga-ga over it, there was some spark for revival - people said - but the scenario at sports facilities still remains the same.
Coming to mention Abhinav Bindra - I would re-iterate my first point. It is an achievement for the individual first, for it was his own finance that went into building his home shooting range where he has practiced more often (though probably the respective sports federation also would have contributed well), than having used state provided facilities. So the victory is of the mind that has been trained so hard to achieve it's goal.
The nation will take pride for it eventually, for that is what the politically inclined organizers would have in mind.
But we have to stop going ga-ga over this event. It is a very serious trap we will fall into if we bask in the glory of this event, as the media will make it seem now...
The need is to not bask in this glory forever, but to use this as a message, at every level that the mind of individuals should be allowed to nurture their dream, train, and develop their skills in one or the other sport, so that they can use to participate at the National level and go to the world stage.
Instead of allowing the politicians to hijack this event to promote their good, we as citizens need to recognize our kids' potentials and ensure that there are serious attempts to join forces together to provide for suitable training facilities, at city levels, colony levels so that everyone can participate in the sport of their choice and based on true merit grow into National level players.
Only then, our growing population numbers can really stand up to what each individual's true internal potential is
And maybe the big Olympic dream of more than 2-3 individual Gold medals can really come true for India.
Comment 1: By Ishana Sharma on 12th Aug 2008
Seems its just the beginning we can expect more
gold medal in Olympics looking at he way how we
have take up in the first day itself.
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