Satire: Why Sports are not important

“You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through study of Gita” -Swami Vivekananda

Oh, don’t take it too seriously, it’s just a quote by one of the greatest sons of our country, Swami Vivekananda. These quotes are useful in writing essays during the exams! No need to apply them! What’s in sports? We all appreciate that sport is important, but not for us, only for the sportspersons. We enjoy watching them, but hardly participate in any sporting activity which may improve our level of fitness. And for the children, sports should be banned! It’s a complete waste of time! Children should concentrate on their study! They should complete their school hours, attend coaching classes and then return home and study again. In between, if they find time, they should learn how to operate technology by playing video games. Video games imbibe team work as not only the child, but the parents, or even the grandparents, can participate. Can you ever imagine such a family participation in any other discipline of sports! No! So, the suggestion is to make video games the National Sport of our country and let’s appeal to the International Olympic Council to incorporate it in Olympic Games.

The tiny tots love to play. But, we must understand that, like their size, their brain is also tiny. They cannot understand what is good for them and what is bad. At that age, they should start spending more time in understanding subjects which involve technicalities. There is a curriculum available for their progressive development. There is a ‘system of evaluation’ to understand whether they are enough ‘developed’ or not. What? Sport also involves techniques? Don’t make yourself the laughing stock, what is the technique involved in kicking? Anybody can run and kick a ball by using their toes! What? What would be the position of the ‘non-kicking foot’? Oh, this is not a rocket science at all, you can kick the ball only with one foot and the other should be considered as the non- kicking one. So simple! No curriculum is required for that! Any sports trainer can teach it. What? A mathematics teacher is an expert of the subject and he knows what to teach! No curriculum is needed for that! What an illiterate you are! Mathematics and sports can never be compared! In mathematics, a comprehensive curriculum is required and in sports, no such curriculum is needed. That’s all, no more ‘illiterate’ question will be entertained!!

What? The dismal performance of our sportspersons at the international level! Oh, what can be done? I have thought a lot on this while sitting on my armchair! What a pity! A country of more than one billion population cannot win medals at the international level! Let us do something, let us criticize a lot. Let us criticize the Government, federations and sports-persons! All of them should be replaced! Otherwise, there will be no hope for Indian sports. The only solution is to replace them and then India will start winning medals after medals. Please make the administrators understand that two disciplines should be given more importance – video games and cricket. In cricket, we have Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Dhoni! They are our icons, they mesmerized us! They cannot be replaced! That is why, we do not encourage our children to be like them! You cannot be like them! You can just watch them and clap! You will have the opportunity when India will participate in the Olympics of video games! Our children and their parents and their grandparents will make us proud by their dazzling performances. Let us wait for that great day to come, let us wait for the day when India will become a ‘sporting nation’! The nation will, surely, remember my contributions as an ‘armchair critique’ for the ‘sporting successes’ of the country! I am sure of that.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and is not to be taken seriously