By Himanshu Sharma:
ALERT: This is first of a series. Please bear with me.
Recently some events & things have forced me to think, in fact to think a lot. When I was viewing the coverage of Kejriwal and Anna movement or performance of the Indian team at Olympics or power failure or Assam riots or economic reports and the list goes on; even while watching for entertainment or media like Satyemev Jayate or The Dark Knight Rises, I was forced to question myself.
So what is this pattern behind India’s failure? One simple reason for all. Is it our culture? Is it our people? Is it our politics? Is it our past? Honestly I am not sure, but I would like to propose some theories. For this, we first need to discuss some of India’s failures. Only then we will be able to find common points and then we can draw a pattern out of them.
First let’s consider sports. Look around and tell me how many parents do you find supporting their children to take up a sport other than cricket? Don’t go on reading, work with me and give it a thought. I know a 12-year-old boy, very passionate about swimming; successful at district and state level. Yet his parents’ primary focus are his studies. They even stopped his swimming when his results were not good enough to place him in the top 10.
Why do you think this is? Answer is simple; parents want their child to have a NORMAL LIFE. They don’t want him/her to ‘risk‘ their career and life for some stupid passion he/she has. I wonder, if only earning money is important to them. Satisfaction & respect don’t count? We curse our players when they lose. I say salute them. They have managed to get so far in this great Indian climate. Trust me, support of the society matters. Even if a person is just able to earn enough to meet his/her ends but gets respect for the efforts put in to win some medals for our country is quite enough. Parents will start supporting their children.
Respect a sportsman who gives his youth for something he is passionate about in a very hostile environment. Respect the fact that given a fair chance, she/he can make this country proud and even make other countries respect us. Make it an honourable profession. Don’t just wake up once in 4 years.
I am proud of every Indian player who played his/her best in London Olympics 2012!
Okay, now let’s continue this with understanding our failure as a democracy. But we shall do it tomorrow. This is going to be a long post.