Monday, August 11, 2008

Achievement or Embarrassment

Everybody seems to be in a joyous mood and celebrating Abhinav Bindra winning a gold medal. Individual achievement after 28 long years. Well done Mr Bindra. Media has hyped it so much that there isn’t any other news airing on the channels. Star movie must be thinking of an in-house production “Abhinav Bidra-Life and Death”..LOL… . Similar attempts have been made in the past for one and only reason, keep the viewership rate as high as possible. We Indians have to blame ourselves for this too. We kinda get over sentimental, when it comes winning something in a mammoth event like Olympics and then we get over it as quickly as we got on it. That’s us. And it’s going to happen in case of Abhinav too.
I tuned into CNN-IBN this morning and guess what I see… ABHINAV BINDRA all over it. A reporter happenes to ask him … So how do you feel after winning the gold medal .. Check out the answer.. Well….I don’t know. It just happened. I don’t remember what happened out there..Ahggg
This Dude got loads of attitude I can tell you that. Why shouldn’t he? His dad is a millionaire and has announced a gift worth of 200 crore for his son. Do you think it would have made any difference had he not won the gold medal.
Millionaire Dad made him an air conditioned international standard firing range, where he can practice. He says, he spent hours together practicing. Well, who wouldn’t? I know a friend of mine who is a national level shooter, holds 13th rank. Had he been given all the gadgets and facilities, he would have made it to the Olympics too. Come to think of the driving force behind this achievement. Do you really think it’s the medal? Or the endorsements come after it.
We all know what happens to sportsmen and women after they do something extraordinary for this country, they run after money. Multi-million brands come after them for endorsements. It’s all about the money honey. Someone said ..Money well spent (in that air conditioned practice range) is money earned. Actually it would be wrong for me to say, they do it for the country. They do it for themselves. All of us do. A soldier fights his own battle and for his fellow soldiers, not for anyone else. Hell , not for the country.
Apparently Abhinav at the age of 7 tried to blow the maid servants head, he missed the target and blew the bottle kept on top of her head. Poor maid must have cursed him for the rest if her life.
Here comes the crux….Why this country relies on sportsmen who are affluent and get all they need to make it to Olympics podium. Does the India government do anything to support the sportsmen who cant even dream of a national level game, let alone Olympics. We all know, they don’t. See where Hockey ended up. Countries used to shiver when India’s name was mentioned in the Hockey world.
In a true sportsmanship spirit, Abhinav Bindra did what he is best at and deserves it. But we fellow country men don’t have to go overboard, shout and scream. COZ WE DIDN’T DO NOTHING.

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