What an eventful week this past one was. On one hand the whole of India was celebrating our teams victory in the inaugural T20 World Cup tournament held in South Africa. Not one person in the entire wide world expected Team India to be champions. But they did play wonderfully well as a team and deserved the victory. The whole media went berserk as did various governments competing with each other to announce cash prizes to the winning members of their respective states. Wow!!!! we do have a lot of money to spend on people who are already stinking rich with their endorsements and match fees. I cannot understand one thing about this. Yes they did our country proud and we ought to thank them for their performances but just announcing lakhs of rupees as awards.....are you kidding me??. On the same token, why not announce cash awards to the Indian Hockey team who won the Asia Cup and Indian football team for winning the Nehru Cup.
What makes these players achievements any lesser?. I almost fell down form my chair when I read that the Indian Hockey Federation(IHF) president Mr Gill announces a cash prize of Rs 1000......oh yes Rs 1000 for every goal scored. Wow!!!!! what a magnanimous gesture. He sure will do well if he learns the importance of zeros from the BCCI president or variosu state governments.
Its a pity that in the same week when the Indian cricketers were praised to the sky, had a celebratory drive from the airport and a huge presentation at the Wankhede stadium.....[and please pay good attention to the picture....The winners were the cricketers but the members in the front row of the dias were BCCI officials and Maharashtra ministers], there was disturbing news that the Indian hockey players were planning to go on a hunger strike for the stepmotherly treatment meted out to them. Agreed cricket is fascinating and captures the attention of millions of people in the country but look at other countries where all sports coexist and no wonder Australia for example are excellent in cricket, soccer, hockey and any other sport. Why cannot we the public and media treat all sports equally. It has been this way for a long long time and any hope that victories like Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey tournament, Asia Cup etc changes the mindset of the public .......unfortunately no!!!
Another place where the public and media need to change their mindset and become more mature is in reacting to wins or losses. So as soon as Dhoni captains India to a triumph, Dravid, Sachin and Saurav are targetted. And media conducting polls as to Do we need the holy trinity etc etc......what nonsense. Agreed, young performers are the future but they need to be groomed well before being thrown in the wild. Because if they are thrown in the deep and tehy fail, because of the fickle minded public and media just prey on them and some pelt stones at their homes etc.....Why can't we have a balanced approach to their victories or defeats?.
The same Dhoni's house was attacked when he failed in a few games and now he is forgiven. Dravid's house has been attacked. Every sportsman has to go through highs and lows. So if Team India fails against Australia, dont kill them, with some experts questioning their attitude, etc. And please for god's sake stop with all the competition about which government comes up with a higher cash award. Let us treat all sports equally. Our hockey team won the Asia Cup and the soccer team won the Nehru cup. They too deserve our appreciation and admiration for their stupendous achievement. .
Hail team India in hockey, football and cricket. They are all gifted sportsmen in a land of billion. Let us encourage them all without a heroic treatment for cricketers and a stepmotherly treatment to other sports. The media sure has the biggest role in creating this awareness among the public
3 comments:
Did you see the comment by Yuvraj?
There are people in the Indian team playing for the last 15 or 16 years who do not have a medal to show for themselves. But, here we have people playing their debut matches but walking away with the medals.
What nonsense? How can we even play down the achievements of the biggest three of Indian cricket? They have their feet firmly on the ground. But people like Yuvraj have to learn.
What the hell is happening in the country? It is after all a game, guys!! Why do you hype it up so much? We need to grow up...
And I am sure, you must have read my latest writeup on the same topic!!! Totally disgusting, the way we have been treating the other sports!!!
Thanx GK for your comments. Yes I totally agree with what you have written. Well for all thos who said the Big 3 shud be dropped had a dose of reality in the rain abandoned 1st ODI against Australia.
This is what Chappell and Dravid wanted to do, have more youngsters and the whole country painted them as villains.
Well for sure public memory is shortlived and the media....oh the lesser said about them, the better
Keep up the good work.
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