THE TROUBLE ON TWITTER

The Trouble on Twitter

Shobha Dey’s concern for Rio medals

R N Misra

Shobha Dey has shown her concern for losing a good number of Rio medals, but we are not returning empty handed even.  Her prophesy has failed to justify what she has tweeted and she has been rebuked, abused, rather made a fool of her own doings, disproportionately.  We should not be so much reactionary against her.  Criticism itself is a game and should be accepted sportingly.  Shobha has a right to say as a citizen and as a woman of sporting attributes, especially when nation’s prestige is involved, and we have been more or less heading to draw a blank.  Thanks to our sports persons, we have at least won a Bronze and Silver at fag end of the Olympics at Rio.  Shobha as a writer has excelled in her field and has acquired recognition vis-à-vis a status.  One can demean her even for this score, it is another matter; it is one’s choice to do so.  There are others who have also felt like her, but they are silent.  They neither tweet nor fill columns.  When Shobha tweets, she really means that something seriously be done for Indian sports to improve the quality, though her language remains sarcastic, impregnable  with insults and degradation. Journalism has spoiled her literary charm and she has been reduced to a columnist of a lower quality ‘Gupshup’.  We win the battles of sports but when it comes to show our might at the war of sports, we are shaken and ultimately lose it.  With a heavy heart, but most relentlessly she tweets:

“Goal of team India at the Olympics: Rio jao, selfies lo.  Khali haat wapas aao.  What a waste of money and opportunity”.

Shobha is a champion of social causes.  She has achieved laurels in the fields she has worked.  She is an excellent woman, a powerful mother, a prolific producer of children and a sporting wife always stands to win, and had there been sex Olympiad organised under the leadership of her mentor, Khushwant Singh, she would have earned Gold much earlier in life than Abhinav Bindra.

Now that the controversy has been raised and most twitterati have expressed their anguish against her – the top most exposition – that equals her sarcasm on twitter has been posted by someone equally gifted and brilliant.  He tweets in anger as a rejoinder to Ms. Shobha:

“Porno books likho.  Twitter par bakwas pelo.  Faltu oxygen ko carbon dioxide me badalo.  What a waste of space and human life”

It is paying in the same coin: in the same diction, style and effect.  Shobha has never been sensitive, sympathetic or emotional to human feelings.  She is double faced woman; keeps something in mind and expresses something else.  She thinks she has won the world by writing fu**ing novels and has become celebrity because she has liberty to write trash in her ‘politically incorrect’ columns through the courtesy of TOI.  She is female edition of her mentor, much debased and degenerated in language, sensitivity and approach.  Has she ever tried to find out causes of failure at Olympics?  Has she ever written in her columns about that sincerely and with honesty?  It is of course a separate topic for debate and discussion.  Why nations fail in general and India in particular in acquiring a reasonable number of medals?  What is that number?  Can Shobha Dey tell about the magic number? She must have contemplated about the same.  Here is what Abhinav Bindra presents his analytics. He sheds light on why India isn't winning medals at Rio Olympics and makes absolute sense.

A fortnight ago the talk in India was about how many medals will the country win at the Rio Olympics. Now, the talk is why has India not been able to earn a single medal even after sending the top 118 athletes in various disciplines.

The answer to this question could lie in this tweet from India's only individual gold medallist at the Olympics - Abhinav Bindra.  He tweets:

“Someone who knows the dynamics of Indian sports and what it means to rise through the ranks, through the hostile bureaucratic walls of the federation.

The cost of one Olympic medal for the UK is 5.5 million Pounds - that is roughly Rs 48 crore per medal. So if India wanted 10 medals at Rio Games, it should ideally have invested at least Rs 480 crore on those medal winners”

The question Bindra indirectly wants us to ask all the authorities who run Olympic sports in India is do they invest that much of money on our athletes for the country to expect these many medals.

Bindra adds:

“Perhaps, India should take the example of Great Britain and learn from them how increased sports budget for Olympics have resulted in more medals.

Since the Beijing Games in 2008, Great Britain increased its funding to Olympic sports by a whopping 16 per cent. As a result, they've risen in the Olympic ranks from 34th spot at the Atlanta Games in 1996 to third spot at London Games in 2012 to already second place in Rio Games.

It was earlier reported that US spends Rs 22 per day per athlete, Jamaica 19 paise per day per athlete and India just 3 paisa per athlete per day.

Naysayers will argue that it isn't fair to compare India with Britain's prowess as a sporting nation but what is evident is that if you have a target of medals to win at the Olympics, and can earmark a budget to achieve to that, it can work. It did so for Team Great Britain, it can for India too, provided the federations work towards that goal in sync with the athletes”.

It should be enough for Shobha Dey to realise under what difficult situation do our sports persons struggle to fight for medals and would bring back on track her sense of judgement regarding our participants in Olympics.

Most of India is composed of poor population.  Those who are rich make sports their hobby, if at all they desire, otherwise they do not enter this arena.  So sports, games and other such physical competitions are left to middle and upper middle classes to opt and excel at these activities.  By nature and circumstances, the middle class finds solace in pursuing career first which provides them earning their daily bread.  This is also the case for upper middle class who prefers education to carve out their career.  When there is choice between education and sports, they choose education which shapes their future life.  It is an individual choice - logical and pressing – and they do not opt for sports.  Needless to say that Tendulkar pursued formal education only up to VIII standard.  Many celebrities of tinsel town – Bollywood – formally remain less educated but carve out their career in dance, drama, music and acting or advertising.  So the sport is the most risky business to pursue.  And those who really make a point to become a wrestler, weight lifter, and shooter or opt for any other game of Olympic order do only on their own risk and on their personal worth. 

It is here that the society, the nation or the people at large or their institutions need to  help, encourage, organise and take care of sports persons.  Abhinav Bindra’s gold was an exception.  He or his father spent a lot of personal money on that sport and it was his constant endeavour to pursue to win.  Society or nation did little for Abhinav’s gold.  He kept the zeal and participated in other Olympics but failed.  Why? Because he pursued the life of sports all alone and nation came as a name attached to him.

The other important fact is that we belong to tropics and tropical zones are not very conducive for excellence in sports at the world level.  Our society owes a lot to young performers, sports persons and those who participate in Olympics, undergoing odds and unfavourable conditions at home. Abhinav Bindra is our pride.  But there are hundreds of future Bindras waiting for our waiving hands for encouragement and support.  Let the government and the institutions meant for promoting social and national causes come forward and help our sports persons.  Let a proper infrastructure be set up so that they may get constant support.  If a person tops the district or state level, his life should be made financially secured.  His only aim should be to achieve laurels at higher or highest level.  If a Member of Parliament or state legislature can get pension for life at the age below thirty, why not a sports person should be allowed that facility at the age of 25 or above.

One must also consider that our low performance is linked with geographical and genetic factors – both interdependent – affecting the level of achievement.  India belongs to tropical zone, almost living within tropics, experiencing unfavourable sports-climate along with the vagaries of nature – air, water and Sun.  It reduces our stamina, strength and resilience to undergo the hardships of sports activities and prove our power to achieve higher ranks at the world events or Olympics.  Still we manage to earn some credits, points, ranks or medals but not much to be proud of.  We lose several medals by a fraction of second on technical grounds of timing and counts.  We do not apply and practice the accuracy of nano seconds in our regular sessions at home due to lack of efficient tools and equipment. To understand the point of habitat and genetic factors, one must go through the latest tally of medals (as on 14-8-2016) won by the participants belonging to different geographical zones.

At Rio Olympics as on 14^th August:  US: 60, China: 41, GB: 30, Germany:16, Japan:24, Russia:23, Australia:22, Itally:18, S. Korea:13, Hungry:11, Canada;11.  But none of them belongs to the Tropics

Now come to Tropical zone, the medals earned are not more than four/five by individual country.  They are:  Thailand: 4, Ethiopia: 3, Jamica:2, Singapore: 1, Indonesia: 2. Kenya: 2, Malysia:1, Philipines:1, UAE:1

What do the above comparative figures signify?  At any rate, given the present circumstances, we should only expect between 5 to 10 at best, and 1 to 2 or none at worst. And best may happen when we change our arena of sports by creating new settlements in some temperate climatic areas carved within India in middle or high Himalayas or places like Bangalore, Mysore or better hilly tracks of Nilgiris as during Raj the British army had their different commands’ head offices stationed at better places.  And this is not enough.  India must also develop human genetic engineering to produce sports persons.  This is quixotic idea, but has to be accepted in the broader sense of the term if we really want to excel in this field.  India has the best of human stock, only we have to manage it and penetrate scientifically, overcoming social, economic and political constraints.  We can raise an army of athletes if we so desire.  We must organise summer camps of sports and games in Europe or any other temperate zone for the benefit of our sports persons under the guidance of foreign coaches to learn the best of expertise, tactics and technicalities of the games and utilise the winter season for practice at home.  If we start a type of sports revolution in the country and tell the participants that money will not be a constraint in pursuing their mission, we shall in all earnestness achieve our goal. 

Not that we have done nothing in this area; we have excelled in Hockey.  It is an open air game suiting our climatic conditions, land and temperament.  We have earned laurels and produced the wizard of hockey – Dhyanchand and other dominating players to keep us at the top.  But see what has happened now?  The present hockey is altogether a different game.  It is actually no hockey at all.  Who had suggested the International hockey authorities to change the grounds by covering them with plastic grass?  Certainly we did not. We were best on old natural turf.  Why it was done so?  The change has been done to defeat Asian hockey.

The other point is that country’s population has nothing to do with the ratio of sports persons.  We should not project such relationship.  What is important is the way we organise them for sports.  We lack genuine sports culture and it has to be developed.  We do not have proper set up at grassroots level.  A cluster of villages or Taluka should have a sports-complex.  At District level there should be multiple of such complexes – each specialising in different sports discipline. This infrastructure will become heavier at higher or State level.  Sports and games should be organised under proper guidance and volunteers should be recruited for the purpose.  Schools up to 10+2 level must have instructors – both male and female.

Money is important or may be directly proportionate to medals, but without proper management, framework and structure, it may not bring fruitful results.  Statistics provided relating to this may vary and can prove anything, but our analytics may fail in the long run.  Out  of the money spent on sports, only 10 to 20 percent reaches the genuine person, the rest is spent on organisational set up lavishly.  So a watch dog superstructure should also be there to look after the sports affairs.  Reports have been received regarding the shabby treatment given to our sports persons on the one hand, and luxurious living and spending on the organizers or higher ups on the other.  Not naming anybody, it is evident that our top administration has failed at Rio Olympics to project a clean and honest image of a real promoter, helper and saviour of sports and games in India.   

The Olympics are not the true test of equals.  They try to bring an approximate equality, but it can never be done so.  This fact of matter must be understood and remembered by those who clamour for gold.  It requires equality in economy, geographical conditions and genetics which are not easily possible to be achieved.  The real philosophy of Olympics lies in participation, in global celebration of sports and game.  It is a friendly event of get together of sports persons who rejoice in participation – medals do come with their perseverance, total devotion and dashing quality to win just as bye-products.  But medal or raging war for it is not the soul of Olympics.  It is in this sense that Shobha Dey should judge our athletes. 

Now here is a final word for Didi.  Her twitter remarks have stirred up a real hornet’s nest and she has to bear the consequences.  What you share inside your sitting room with friends should not appear on twitter in a casual manner.  But Didi has done this mistake.   Still, nothing has gone wrong.  Shobha is a great lady and should apologize for her remarks.  She will become even greater.  She wields a good pen and can well subside the controversy through the power and charm of her language, style and beauty.  The athletes are the part of our extended family i.e. India and shobha will not lose opportunity to win their hearts.

Pen is always mightier than the barrels of bones.