There is this fabulous boxer called Manny Pacquiao. He is a Filipino. I wonder if Saina Nehwal will be able to recognize him. Why am I asking this? When Maria Sharapova, an icon in her native Russia for her tennis, could not recall who Sachin Tendulkar was it triggered a furore in social media by Indians who felt hurt and angry at the “disrespect”. Would truckloads of people in the Philippines react similarly if our own badminton star failed to acknowledge the great Manny? I doubt. The manner in which we react to any Sachin- baiting is to a large extent a factor of our utter lack of sporting heroes. In a country that doesn’t like playing any sport – and which has a deep disdain and fear especially of contact sports (our idea of fun, unlike in the west or even large parts of Asia, is eating samosas and namkeen in front of the TV on weekends) – cricket has convincingly overshadowed everything else. We have lost our hockey prowess, we languish at the bottom of the FIFA heap as far as football is concerned (at number 147 in the world!), and aren’t good at much else, whether it is tennis, volleyball, basketball, wrestling or shooting. No wonder a nation of 1.2 billion erupts in collective ecstasy when an entire Olympic squad returns with one gold medal. It’s OK, really, if the world doesn’t grovel before our one and only champion, doesn’t worship our many gods, can’t place us on the map or jokes about our compulsive need to litter, bargain and break traffic laws. We can’t keep protesting at the slightest hint of criticism. Such petulance is the mark not of a great nation but of a country that thinks, long after the white man unshackled us and left our shores, that it is still the underdog. It’s time, folks, to swallow a chill pill. As the Batman’s Joker would say, “Why so serious?”
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 12:58:16 +0000
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