Nostalgia is not what it used to be.
This post is triggered by today's last page headlines.
The year is 1960. I am in the 11th standard. The headmaster is a graceful gentleman. Stern but kindly. Tough but fair. Well-built but not over-weight. Taller than the other teachers. Handsome in a Balraj Sahni way, only more so.
He turns up just-about-moist eyed at one late-summer morning school meet. "It is a sad day for India", says he, starting his daily address, "our Olympic contingent will return without a medal."
A youngish know-it-all, not me, chirps up, jumping right into the trap, "But Sir, we won the silver in hockey."
"If you leave behind gold, bringing home silver does not count."
The hockey gold is something we have always taken for granted. Much breast-beating follows all over the country. Pundits propound various theories. Pundit Nehru chips in with his two bits worth. Unanimous conclusion: something must be done.
The Punjab government, feeling guilty as the supplier of a majority of hockey players, announces a path-breaking and Olympics-busting plan to encourage sports of all varieties.
All schools are required to have training programmes. Each will cover at least five disciplines of their choice. There will be weekly competitions for individual and monthly ones for team sports at district headquarters .
The first three in each category will get a "collar pin". Three different colours. The school getting the maximum number of pins gets a rotating shield. The school getting the maximum pins over the year gets to keep the shield.
When the first pins adorn school uniform shirt collars of a few of my fellow students, I am happy for them for I know that they have worked hard to earn them. Not having adequate athletic skills to go up against the best, I also feel a little bit sorry for myself.
The turnaround comes very fast. In no time, the better endowed schools have figured out that if you send different, but able, kids every week, you improve your chances of the annual win. The students, or their parents, have figured out that you don't really have to win it; there is a price for every 'pin'.
Within a few weeks, the city is full of coloured pins. Everyone and his brother is wearing one or more pins testifying to their athletic prowess. The scheme collapses.
Snippets
1. We were to win the gold only twice after that. In Tokyo 1964 when we beat Pakistan in sweet revenge for the Rome 1960 loss. And later in Moscow 1980, when no other team of any standing turned up to play.
2. In short order both Pakistan and India were relegated to lower ranks by the white man who "will never learn how to tackle our wily dribblers". Not qualifying for Beijing 2008 was the nadir. Qualifying for London 2012 merited front page banner headlines; seen in a sports context only when India wins a cricket world cup or Maria Sharapova wins or loses anything.
3. The enormity of what had happened in 1960s became clear to me only in the early seventies when I travelled by road around England and Europe one summer. Over a matter of two weeks and hundreds of kilometres I never ever saw a field hockey ground. Or anyone playing it. Every village I passed through had two or more football grounds, though.
4. The year we first lost the hockey gold, I was a member of my school's junior hockey team. The shortest, slightest and the only 11th standard player in the whole district; most were in the 8th or lower. This lead to much resentment and charges of under-reporting of age. My coach did not let me play a single match for fear that the opposition would go after me with intent. My team won the championship. I still have the certificate.
Thanks Anil, for this nostalgic look (and yet sad in a way) about our sports. With a population of 1+billion, it is really sad to see us so low in the medal list; I am sure we have able bodied and well interested athletes, but if only our system could support and encourage these young men! We can no longer claim we dont have the resources. Hope this will turn around in the next decade.
ReplyDeleteHonesty is backbone of the society and none is keen to have it back. There is too much of resources to loot if one has the right attitude, one can even be the next PM without election. Statistics is damn lie. We own 45% malnutrition children of the world and at the last in the list of countries in the report from UN; while we excel in the list of billionaires. Our economists have made all Indians wealthy by declaring Rs. 28 is adequate for living a day while a Rupee can only buy a needle and not a loaf of bread. Poor Indians are branded as Maoist by our leaders when they ask for food. Our media cheers T20, T10, T5, and Toss winners. Our heroes in that game are chosen leaders of the nation. [Cricket is name of insect that makes noise in the darkness that engulfs India.]
ReplyDeleteSports require optimism...hard core optimism/ it warrants physical strength & mental strength has to drive its physical counterpart..a country can think of winning golds & not solitary ones once it goes beyond dreams of roti, kapadaa aur makan..that day is not too far off
ReplyDeleteWinning sporting events is neither necessary nor sufficient for economic development. A few days ago, I was in the British Virgin Islands. A country of mostly blacks have a standard of living on par with the richest countries in the world. They never won an Olympic medal. I was at a dinner where Orlando Smith showed up. The matter of the Olympics came up. He was categorical: "I do not give a hoot. Let Usain Bolt win all the golds for Jamaica. I do not want Jamaican economy here."
ReplyDeleteWhat worries me is exactly what Kankan Babu noted. The WHO notes: "About 49 percent of the world's underweight children, 34 percent of the world's stunted children and 46 percent of the world's wasted children, live in India." I would applaud any government that reduces those numbers to zero over the next two decades over any other effort to bring in 50 Olympic golds.
Tapen
C'est vrai.
DeleteA nation as a person must do a SWOT analysis and decide to pursue its 'strenghts'.We simply dont have the genes to excel in sports but we could win mental olmpiads with ease.So , to hell with Olympic medals and as Tapen says, lets feed our kids.
ReplyDeleteAnil has a wonderfully retentive memory or a bent for fiction writing.It seems he can just go back in time and write it as if it happened yesterday.Or does he brush dim memories with the strokes of an artist?