Media fans 'Fan power'

In India, there have been many achievements in sports that have gone un-recognised in the past. It’s only when the media brings it to public notice that the concerned officials make a note of it and put in some kind of efforts to reward such accomplishments. It would have been ideal if these ‘concerned officials’ took initiatives in such issues as a matter of pride, rather than making last minute arrangements just to save their image in public eye.

India has never been a sports-oriented country. Seldom do we come across parents encouraging their wards to take up sports as a profession, despite a few kids showing a lot of promise at an early age. In a world where we believe “charity begins at home”, it’s not surprising to see the apathy of the common man and the high-handedness of the politicians in taking a back-seat when it comes to encouraging and recognising sporting talent at the international/national/state level, by way of rewards and public celebrations, as it is never been in the culture at a house-hold level.

However, there is always an exception to every established order (read disorder). There is always an eager sports-fan, a patriot or a good-samaritan round the corner, who it seems, has vowed not to let any accomplishment fade away or any budding talent go waste, without allowing it to bask in its share of glory. Sometimes the manifestation of the qualities of an ardent fan, the patriot and the good samaritan can be seen in the media, in institutions or in some cases, in rare-individuals.

This phenomenon was once again evident during this week when we happened to come across a few newspaper articles about two sports personalities of Karnataka. One was about the recent Paralympic Games Silver medal winner Girisha Hosanagara Nagarajegowda and the other was about one Ms. Byramma, a record-breaking swimmer. The only difference in the articles about these two personalities was the different eras in which these sports-personalities had showcased their accomplishments (a gap of eighty years).

While Girisha won the silver medal in the current 2012 Paralympic games, Byramma broke the world record when she swam non-stop for 18 hours in the Kempambudhi lake in Bangalore, as a four year old girl, in the 1930s. Apparently her achievement had been witnessed by the then Dewan of Mysore Sri. Mirza Ismail.

The media constantly kept a tab on Girisha’s progress and success at the Paralympics. Even before his neighbours knew about his achievement at the international level, the Indian (Olympic/Paralympic) team fans were celebrating his success across the country. The otherwise insensitive officials were already on their toes to felicitate and reward this talented boy whose achievement was not even known to the people of his own village yet!

In Byramma’s case it was the efforts of Sri. V.Somashekar, a senior citizen (70 years of age) from Bangalore, which reminded India and the whole world about this ‘lost-wonder’ whose fame had spread to the U.S and the U.K like wild-fire in the 1930s when she broke the swimming record. If not for the selfless struggle of this retired wireman, the world wouldn’t have had a clue about this ‘wonder girl’ from India. In fact the very lake in which the record was broken doesn’t exist today (weed infested and polluted). Again, the journalist who respected V. Somashekar for his pain-staking efforts of collecting and recording details of Byramma (he had to literally scan each gully of old-Bangalore to get hold of a picture of Byramma) over a period of five years has to be applauded.The contributions of individuals like Ramakanth Archrekar (Tendulkar’s mentor), Shetty Chandra (a local club team secretary who supported G.R. Vishwanath all through his formative years) have made sure that India was not deprived of legends. There have always been a few dedicated journalists and correspondents who’ve never let down the country’s sporting heroes, and a few organisations like OGQ that have relentlessly backed talent in pursuit of Gold medals.

All thanks to such individuals and institutions that the small lamp of ‘sporting culture’ in India continues to burn bright. Fan power has a huge impact. It’s upto the media to continue to fan the’ fan- power’, which gives a ray of hope for the future generations of sportsmen in India .