Monday, April 4, 2011

Agony in ecstasy…


It has been 28 years, 28 long years. The whole of India had waited for the moment, and when it actually arrived, on the 2nd of April, 2011, the whole of the country rejoiced in unison. The reason, as all are well aware, India had won the 10th edition of the Cricket World Cup.

The celebrations on the streets all over the country were seen by one and all. Each one was congratulating the other irrespective of whether they knew one another or not. There was no discrimination based on caste, creed, economy etc. It was INDIA celebrating.

Everyone was appreciating Dhoni and his Men in Blue and Gary Kirsten. But most of them forgot what was achieved by the teams of the past. In my opinion, the people who also deserve credit are the likes of Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Javagal Srinath, all of whom were a part of the Team India of 2003, that went to the finals. They were all responsible for infusing the self belief in players like Virender Sehwag, M S Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Suresh Raina, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, all of whom are now World Cup winning cricketers. Even Sachin Tendulkar improved mentally in their era. Also, let us not forget one Mr. John Wright. He was the one who indeed got the team on the right track. He did infuse a lot of self belief in the team and all the hard work of these past greats has helped India reap the fruits.
Well, I am not here to praise anyone or degrade someone. I am as happy for Team India as everyone else. I can now proudly say to my grandchildren that I saw India making History in 2011.

But I am sad to see the discrimination prevalent to a great extent in our country. And we can see two great extremes when it comes to cricket versus all other sports. Cricketers, I am sure, are Gods to all sports lovers and whatever they do, gifts pour into their pockets. They are the richest paid sports persons in our country. But still they are awarded money in the crores, given free travel both on rail and on air for life, given sites for accommodation, and what not. You score a century against Australia, you are assured of at least an Arjuna Award, if not more.

But sports in India is not only about Cricket. We have various other Sports. There are a great number of other legends in our country, who have not got what they actually deserved. Let me quote some examples here..

Prakash Padukone, the ace badminton star of India. He was the first Indian to win the All England Badminton Championship. Saina Nehwal is following his footsteps and is actually doing better than him. She is World number 3 at the moment. An achievement the whole of India SHOULD be proud of and celebrate. But did we? I guess not..

We have Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok who have done the country proud by racing against greats like Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton etc. They have also had their share of victories against racers tipped to be far better than them.. Are we celebrating this fact?

We had Abhinav Bindra, who won the first Individual Gold Medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Did we come out on the streets with the national flag or at least burst crackers the way we did on April 2nd?

We have had a very successful Commonwealth Games, where we bagged medals by the handful. We had Shooters, Athletes, Weight-lifters, Boxers all of whom did exceedingly well, getting a record 101 medals in all. We were number 2 there, behind Australia. And even in the Asian Games, we did quite well, though not as good as expected, but  still, our sportstars did create a record for the country, with the number of medals they managed. What did we do when all this happened. Instead of saluting the stars, we were worried about the fiasco of the Commonwealth Games village and were more keen to see who went to jail.. Terrible !!

Who can forget what Grand Master Vishwanathan Anand has achieved? World Champion, I do not know how many times, and has even been the World Number 1. And his is also an individual effort, with no support from others. What have we done? Well, we definitely have pissed him off with our attitude and so, he is not even staying in this country, where sportsmen apart from cricketers do not get their due. How many times have we seen him on the front page of a newspaper? Compare that to the cricketers.. We see them almost every other day. Sad indeed.

Cue Sports.. Have Pankaj Advani and Geet Sethi done the country proud? We talk about what Sachin Tendulkar has achieved when he was 16 years or so. How many of us know that Pankaj advani is the youngest WORLD CHAMPION in Billiards. He was 18 when he became the World Champion. And Sachin became a WORLD CHAMP at 37 years!!!! Did we get to the streets supporting Pankaj. Hardly did we even acknowledge him.

Come tennis and we have been doing well in tennis for some time now. We had Ramesh Krishnan, Vijay Amritraj, Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna and Somdev Devvraman, who have done quite well in the international circuit. But tennis is synonymous with two names in our country… Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. What have they not achieved in the world of tennis ? Together, they have about 23 Grand Slam titles between them. Paes has an Olympic Bronze medal in singles as well. They reached the ATP number 1 ranking for doubles in 1999, 11 years before Team India became number 1 in Cricket. What did we do to celebrate? Well, we were more interested to know the reason for their split, who was behind it and all. We did not get even 1/1000th close to celebrating the way we did on 2nd April.

The irony is that when the Government is giving money in the crores to all the cricketers for winning the World Cup, all the athletes who excelled in the Commonwealth games got money in the lakhs, where most of them were individual sports and the difficulty is far exceeding a team event. And when the entire country was shouting for Team India, on the 2nd and 3rd of April, during and after the Cricket World Cup Finals, two gentlemen silently achieved a phenomenal feat.

When gifts were pouring for Team India and its support staff, the Indian Express of Leander and Mahesh went about their business of achieving what they had set out to. They won the finals of the ATP World Open in Miami, and in the process, dethroned the Bryan Brothers of the USA, to regain their status as the number 1 ranked doubles pair in the world. The pair they dethroned had held the position for some 6-8 years now. We were so happy when India beat Australia in the world cup. What did we do when this pair did the same in tennis? Just a scroll in all news channels; a last page news about it in newspapers and a cheer from few fans. THAT’S IT !!!! I sure did fly the National Flag high seeing their achievement, when they have nothing left to prove… I am proud of each and every sportsperson I have or have not mentioned here.

But I am hurt by the discrimination shown by the country towards those who are not cricketers !!!! It is indeed Agony amidst all the Ecstasy of winning the World Cup. I am as happy for Leander-Mahesh and all the others, as I am for Team India.

This article might seem a bit too long and boring to some, but there are so many such instances that I have not quoted here, which, if I do, will take up a hell of a lot more space…. So, come on India, let us strive to drive away this discrimination and celebrate each and every success of not only of our sportspersons, but each and every Indian who achieves something that deserves a celebration, irrespective of his caste, creed and region.
Let us celebrate the achievements of all those individuals who have done the country proud in one field or another. I SALUTE THEM ALL !!!