Mar 12
30
The Glory of Sport
Sometime back in India we had a get together of old friends from the teenage. Some of them are in academics and we were discussing School buildings and its ambiance. The center point of the discussion was what makes a school too good academically as as well as administratively. Guess what almost everyone agreed upon? Sports and Athletics. These two were the major things that made a school great in terms of Academics??!! Duh! The Administration was deemed superior if they had a football field size playground or even larger. The larger the playground the more expensive and quality driven the school was.
This someone would argue not to be correct but remember the people discussing were educationists with a background of more than a decade of experience in the School Business. The fact is just true. If you can spend enough on sport than a healthy attitude towards learning and teaching can definitely be expected, especially in a place like “India” where sport is given very little credit today.
Paan Singh Tomar – The Movie, based on the real life of a national athletic champion turned outlaw is a must watch for the horrible treatment of sportsperson in our country, India. Well, not the Cricket maniacs who are given all the media publicity for the sake of dirty marketing tactics used by the idiot box companies. The most wonderful message and thought provoking idea in the entire movie was that the, 4th standard fail, school dropout, athlete had learned not to give up and surrender once the race had started, to any circumstance in any situation until the finish line was crossed. The glory of sport and sportsmanship lays in reaching the finish line no matter who gets the Gold, Silver and Bronze.
When in school, we used to participate in the annual sports meet and take an oath under the school flag that we would strive hard for the glory of sport. This is true in every aspect of life, be it academics, play, business or any profession one takes up. Its the very decision a person takes at the starting point and lives up to it through the fire-up till the end of the finish line.
Sportsmen live up to this oath throughout their lives. However, at times, their lives become miserable when the country and its politicians do not understand the glory they have brought to the country. Paan Singh Tomar is dedicated to such forgotten record breaking sportsmen of our country. The forgotten men and women may not have become history but are still forgotten, standing before our own eyes. A few months back I had come across a picture of our hockey team, I think women, who had just returned home from a triumph abroad, standing at the International Airport for Taxis to pick them up. No one to receive the champions, while the country runs after the showbiz cricketers as if they were gods. I am not against any sport but a champion is a champion and pride of the nation for god sake.
The very thing that, I myself do not remember what tournament the ladies had won and the details of their triumph, is embarrassing but then there are many champs out there who have died penniless, even to the extent that they have had to sell of their medals for a survival. The greatness of the country indeed lays in how it treats its national heroes and not how it takes care of the national security of its politicians. A very small percentage of the entire money spent in budgeting for personal security of zillions of representatives of the public would suffice to uphold the glory of these sportsmen and keep the honor of our country shining. Athletes and Sportsmen are the go getter of our society. They are the pride of any culture and tradition right from the dawn of human civilization, remember the Romans and their Colosseum, they are the dignity of our country for they win battles with perspiration and not a drop of blood shed. Our public consciousness needs to wake up and applaud their achievements for the sake of our civility and for the glory of sport itself.
