INDIA: The Passion that never was

Take a walk down the streets every night, and you’d see the common man trudging back after a tiring day at work, a corporate stressed out latching on to his cell phone and more or less, it would be a pretty ordinary atmosphere around. But then comes the weekend and one tends to feel they’re in a whole other world. The Premier League hits the city like a storm and all of a sudden you see people rushing to sports bars and restaurants, donning their jerseys, glowing with pride and their faces written with hope that they’ll come home a happy figure.

However, as losses are part of a game, you’ll see a few come out distraught, frustrated and depressed, wondering how to face the taunts of their friends the next day at work or school. You may put on a happy face but all that’s on your mind is to set things right in the next game.

The passion exudes from every pore, the love for the club is immense and the fan following is unimaginable.

But now, ask a friend of yours if he saw the final of the U-19 cricket World cup. Ask him if he knows what’s happening with India in the Nehru Cup. Ask him if he can name all of our players. An awkward silence will most likely be the response.For all you know, he may not even be aware of the fact that any such matches or tournaments were just played. Now, tell him to name all the players of his favourite football club and he’ll start blabbering immediately.

Ever wondered why?

Is it the passion for the nation that lacks? No, that could’nt be the answer because during the Cricket World Cup, every Indian sits glued to the television while some make a trip to the host nation itself to catch their stars live in action. But as soon as the World cup gets over, we switch our attention elsewhere. It is only during the Olympics when we are made aware of the sportsmen who represent our nation.

The troubles that brew them, their sufferings, it all seems obsolete.

How many of us really know of the hardships our athletes face? In an interview before the London Olympics, they spoke of how difficult their life is compared to cricketers and how their parents didn’t even get passes to go the United Kingdom to see their children doing them proud. At the same time, their earnings are so meagre that they can barely afford tickets themselves. It is only on winning something that the Government decides to award them cash prizes which seem to be their sole source of major income.

So what about the athletes who practice ever so hard and but can’t make it to the victory stand? What happens to them? The matter of having a little metal round your neck with the national anthem playing in a foreign country is as much pride for them as much as making a living is. When they win something, they know that there would be no more hurdles to face, the emotions and mental torment they’ve faced for the past few years is now well and truly over.

We, fans on the other hand, are quick to criticize anyone who doesn’t come back doing us proud at the international level. As was seen around, a lot of jokes were circulated on how Micheal Phelps has won as many Olympic medals as the whole contingent of India has, and many Indians seemed pretty amused by this. Well, evidently the joke was on us and it’s a matter of shame, not humour.

Being not completely supportive of the sportsmen is one thing, but going against them in this way isn’t the right thing to do. What it does is, it increases the pressure on the already loaded-with-responsibility players and makes victory a matter of life-or-death for them.

When you think about the reasons that sportsmen have never got the attention they deserved or the sport the recognition it needs, the mind races through a lot of possible answers, such as:

We feel some sports are substandard

Snapshot- We may have never got hooked on to the TV screens during a boxing or wrestling game. Weightlifting and archery seem to have never really caught our attention. We’d have hardly been to boxing rings or rather may have never even seen one and so we automatically get attracted to sports like cricket and football which have basic sports arenas in every college.What we fail to see is that there are people who’ve been training day in and day out for four years, with thoughts clouding their minds every night that this time they’ll return back a winner, this time they’ll give it all, this time there won’t be any looking back, this time it’s do-or-die.

Why?- Promotions of such sports has never really taken place. A cheque to the winner is a solution to the person’s problem, not the country’s. Maybe building a few more of such sports complexes would increase the interest of the teenagers which in turn would increase the number of people to don the Indian jersey at the games and which would definitely increase the number of medal-getters as they share a symbiotic relationship.

The style of playing is very poor

Snapshot- After watching high profile games in tournaments such as the Spanish League and the English Premier League, watching Indian football seems nowhere near to the style of the football played abroad. We, are quick to judge our players as not intelligent enough on the pitch and that becomes a ‘good enough reason’ to not follow the games. Other than Bhaichung Bhutia and now, Sunil Chhetri, most of us aren’t even aware of the players that represent us in football. The stadiums reek with an eerie silence at times, sometimes have a handful of supporters and next day get a small corner of the newspaper to display the outcome of their efforts in.

Why?- In all footballing nations, the system of youth academies helps in promoting fresh and infact, ‘new-born’ talent. At the age of 3 or 4 itself, these clubs accept entries which gives the child a good 15 years before stepping on to the pitch to perform club and international duties. In India, on the other hand, there are hardly any such academies and infact it’s at a much later age that players decide to head towards the direction of the football field to pursue a career. Such players can never be compared to those who’ve had decades of training and can’t be expected to perform even near-equally.

The support that cries out

Snapshot- Supporting a game is as big a part as playing itself. The drive to win, the urge to fight to the finish, it all depends on the amount of support a sport or team gets. In our country, planning a career that isn’t related to academics seems to be a horrific idea for some. It is considered as good as walking down a dead end. What one’ll tend to notice is that it’s the players from small backgrounds who are given the freedom to chase their dreams, coming from mostly rural areas but still developing themselves to be world class athletes. Most of our entries come from parts like Punjab, where sports is given top priority, central and east India. These people make the most of the little resources around them and are then sent as representatives despite not having fully adapted to the kind of competition they’re to come across.

Why?- As parents, you’d always want your child to pursue a career with loads of opportunities or as people call it, a ‘safe career’ with no hiccups. Sending him towards the sports sector would be considered the most foolish move in a nation dominated by the software sector.

Job security is a key factor which games here don’t guarantee. This is why people who are not very well off give their children a chance to look for better means and tend to accept sports readily as it would still be more productive than the life they lead.

But at the same time, if you have the misconstrued idea that there’s lack of talent in this part of Asia, that would be preposterous. If you take a look around, you’re sure to find a lot of people who may be even better players than the ones who you see on television, but it’s the encouragement and drive to go for it that they never received and ended up with a suit and tie around their neck, sitting at the mercy of corporate companies.

There are a lot of questions that will come to mind. What can we as individuals do about this situation?As citizens of the country, we need to try and bring this matter up to alter the unidirectional vision of the society. Using tweets or social networking site updates to make people aware, is just a temporary answer. We need to get about a movement, we need to tell the Government, to build more complexes, to sponsor athletes and first and foremost, treat our sportsmen with more respect.Its the small outbursts all over that can bring about a revolution, and this is what we need most at this time.

Do your bit, play a part in shaping up the country’s future and once you see the changes, you’d have never felt any happier to see us get the recognition we deserve in the world, and tears would stream down your eyes as you’d never have been more proud to be a part of this beautiful nation- INDIA.