As the world’s greatest quadrennial event, the Olympics winds to an end. For the second most populous country in the world it’s that time of the year when the whole nation deliberates, celebrates, and ruminates our small victories and major losses in yet another Olympics. If only deliberation, celebration and rumination were part of Olympics we would have returned gold in all three.
To borrow Viru’s phrase ‘Shoba de ya na’ we should accept that we are a long way from being a sporting nation. Blame it on Nehruvian policies, as is the trend these days. 70 Years ago when a nation was trying to find its footholds, all that the founders thought of, was to create institutions of academic excellence rather than creating athlete producing factories. We never believed in mass production except in one field, unlike our equally populated neighbours, who though are placed at a poor 71st in the medal per capita rankings even with 58 medals against their name. They are unfortunately in that position due to the larger numerator while we are last on the list because of a poor denominator.
With one Bronze and a Silver we are currently ranked 61 in the medals tally. I would like to compare/ analyse our performance with a couple of teams who have fared better than us, Jamaica (16) Kazakhstan (20), Iran (33), Indonesia (41), Ethiopia (43) and Independent Olympic Athletes (49). The number against them represents their rankings in the medals tally with all of them having secured at least one Gold Medal or more.
We are a developing country ahead of most of them listed above except probably Indonesia and Iran (by virtue of their oil wealth). What are we doing wrong that they are doing right? I would like to analyse the peculiar case of Jamaica, part of the West Indian group of nations who have outshone their neighbour Trinidad & Tobago in producing world class athletes. Trinidad and Tobago being part of West Indian archipelago produced the greatest cricketer I have ever seen (and yet to see) I V A Richards. The same geographical, political and economic conditions prevail in both nations yet Trinidad and Tobago are medal less in this Olympics. Ethiopia always a country on UN’s famine radar produces excellent long distance runners ranked 43 with 1 Gold 1 silver and 3 Bronze medals. I’m not sure what separates us, is it training?, the genetic makeup?, that fire in the belly? or simply the bureaucratic interventions that cripple our development.
We in India pride ourselves in producing CEO’s of big firms and celebrate the success of anybody remotely connected to India. We have been on a Mars mission. We are part of the select Missile Group. Wonder why one of us can’t do a 100 M in less than 10 secs??? Why are we not able to produce an Olympian sprinter, jumper, thrower or a swimmer? It’s not about resources if you compare us to the countries above us. I believe it’s more about our attitude to sports. Thanks to our quota raj, even a talented sportsman thinks of using his talent to land an engineering or a medical seat on sports quota and then use the same platform to secure a government job. The real passion for sports is what is missing; it’s missing because a career in sports does not guarantee a secured life in India. The scenario is changing with the advent of private leagues in Cricket, Football, and Badminton.
Physically I believe we are on par with most of the other nationalities above us on the tally. What ails us, among many things, is structured training. We also lack in identifying and nurturing talent among our 1.3 billion. We pride our self as a nation that nominates a rich citizen to the International Olympic Committee but one that cannot afford to send an athlete with his or her trainer on a business class ticket.
We are a nation which deliberates over the unfair result meted out to us in a fairly judged result. We are a nation who ruminate on what went wrong for the next four weeks and repeat the same every 4 years. What keeps us going, is making it to the top 10 in the medals tally at the Asian Games, the top 30 rankings in the Commonwealth games and above all the topping the table at the SAARC Games.
We often come up with fancy programs like the one titled ‘Road to Rio’ and we might also come up with ‘Train for Tokyo’ but it’s high time we evolve as a nation who think beyond ‘had it not been for this’ or ‘had it not been for that’ and stopped being referred to as a country that sent a contingent of ‘also rans’ but a country that refused to step down from the podium.
This Blog is a tribute to the three ladies who have made us proud this Olympics. P V Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, and Dipa Karmakar who deserves a special mention as the first female gymnast and the first gymnast to represent India in 52 Years. Wish we wake up soon and create many more Sindhus, Sakshis and Dipas before 2020.
Friday, August 19, 2016
Friday, August 5, 2016
Star ratings will do no justice to a Constellation!
The title, I know, sounds sycophant to the core. What more can you expect when a movie called Kabali is whipping up the frenzy in India and beyond cutting across regions and languages. Social Media, FM Channels, Print,Television have been raising their TRP'S by indulging in either Kabali eulogising or Kabali bashing episodes. Not want to be left out; yours truly has joined the bandwagon too to revive this dying blog. But as an ardent Rajini fan who is yet to see the movie I have decided to take sides of Kabali even before I watch it. I would be watching the movie in due course but don’t believe that it’s going to change any part of this blog. (Well I’m posting this after I have watched it, and believe me, without making any changes to the story below.) I know most of you who are reading this are already suffering from a Kabali fatigue and wouldn’t go beyond this paragraph. I dedicate this to those hard core Rajini fans (First Day First Show at Albert Theatre types) like me who would continue to read it.
This blog is neither about Rajinikant nor his acting skills, but about the experience of a Rajini movie. You simply need to watch a Rajini movie to fulfil your theatrical obligations if you happened to be born south of the Vindhyas.
As somebody who was learning to walk as he made his Kollywood debut and having the privilege of watched most of his films over the last four decades, I bestow upon myself, to be the judge and the jury (A la Arnob Goswami) in the ongoing debate.
While the likes of a Nettrikan or a Moondru Mudichu, gave an insight into the acting skills of this legend. A Billa, or a Thee made you fall in love with the everlasting Rajini mannerisms, this was followed by the punch dialogue era of Padayappa & Basha. Then came the millennials, and the 50 year old Rajini had to be re-sold to the millennials, this was attempted with the help of some effective use of professional tools both on the technical and the marketing fronts. The era of Sivaji, Enthiran, Kochadayan, were targeted at the millennials by repackaging an ageing Rajini, which in my opinion was not well received. Kabali is for those fans like me who grew up watching his movies and wanted to watch one last one that featured a graciously greying Rajini that gave us more joy than a ‘orru koodai sunlight’ or a ‘orru Koodai moonlight’ Rajini or a Robot Rajini.
My only advice is don’t ever write or read a review on any of his movies. He is not worth any reviews, he is beyond that. Don’t complain about directorial flaws, the producer, the story, the cast, the acting etc. His movies are entertainers; experience facilitators, feel good providers.
The millennials who scorn at a Rajini movie today should know that collecting Pokémon collectables was in, when you were a kid but today it doesn’t impress you anymore since you need to enable your data package and need access to the GPS to enjoy your Pokémon Go. Both of which are a constraint on you as you grow older. No such constraints limit our version of entertainment. We still love the gravity defying cigarettes landing on his lips after behaving like a trapeze artist midway; the bullets from his gun take detours on their projectile defying all laws of motion thereby confusing, but landing on its intended target.Well, for all those Imdb rating hungry, angrezi movie freaks out there, if we enjoyed watching a trigger happy Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible series from 1 to 5 without complaining, the same applies to our son of the soil Rajini too.
The title is what impressed me the most. Kabali which is a short for Kapaleeswaran derives from Kapalam (the head of Brahma) + Eeashwarar (Shiva), basically born out of an episode of Shiva the auspicious one (read lucky) challenging the creator Brahma. Rajini has just been doing that all these years. He has been challenging the creators of his movies to push him to the limits. Limits not for his acting skills but in testing his humility outside the celluloid world, a deglamourized, bald, greying Rajini is what we get to see unlike his counterparts in the other ‘woods’ who desperately try and look the same in real life too. He has never coaxed us to buy a soft drink or use an after shave or told us that the secret of his energy lay in that chocolate drink.
He is an un-solved conundrum that stardom and humility can be juxtaposed.
This blog is neither about Rajinikant nor his acting skills, but about the experience of a Rajini movie. You simply need to watch a Rajini movie to fulfil your theatrical obligations if you happened to be born south of the Vindhyas.
As somebody who was learning to walk as he made his Kollywood debut and having the privilege of watched most of his films over the last four decades, I bestow upon myself, to be the judge and the jury (A la Arnob Goswami) in the ongoing debate.
While the likes of a Nettrikan or a Moondru Mudichu, gave an insight into the acting skills of this legend. A Billa, or a Thee made you fall in love with the everlasting Rajini mannerisms, this was followed by the punch dialogue era of Padayappa & Basha. Then came the millennials, and the 50 year old Rajini had to be re-sold to the millennials, this was attempted with the help of some effective use of professional tools both on the technical and the marketing fronts. The era of Sivaji, Enthiran, Kochadayan, were targeted at the millennials by repackaging an ageing Rajini, which in my opinion was not well received. Kabali is for those fans like me who grew up watching his movies and wanted to watch one last one that featured a graciously greying Rajini that gave us more joy than a ‘orru koodai sunlight’ or a ‘orru Koodai moonlight’ Rajini or a Robot Rajini.
My only advice is don’t ever write or read a review on any of his movies. He is not worth any reviews, he is beyond that. Don’t complain about directorial flaws, the producer, the story, the cast, the acting etc. His movies are entertainers; experience facilitators, feel good providers.
The millennials who scorn at a Rajini movie today should know that collecting Pokémon collectables was in, when you were a kid but today it doesn’t impress you anymore since you need to enable your data package and need access to the GPS to enjoy your Pokémon Go. Both of which are a constraint on you as you grow older. No such constraints limit our version of entertainment. We still love the gravity defying cigarettes landing on his lips after behaving like a trapeze artist midway; the bullets from his gun take detours on their projectile defying all laws of motion thereby confusing, but landing on its intended target.Well, for all those Imdb rating hungry, angrezi movie freaks out there, if we enjoyed watching a trigger happy Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible series from 1 to 5 without complaining, the same applies to our son of the soil Rajini too.
The title is what impressed me the most. Kabali which is a short for Kapaleeswaran derives from Kapalam (the head of Brahma) + Eeashwarar (Shiva), basically born out of an episode of Shiva the auspicious one (read lucky) challenging the creator Brahma. Rajini has just been doing that all these years. He has been challenging the creators of his movies to push him to the limits. Limits not for his acting skills but in testing his humility outside the celluloid world, a deglamourized, bald, greying Rajini is what we get to see unlike his counterparts in the other ‘woods’ who desperately try and look the same in real life too. He has never coaxed us to buy a soft drink or use an after shave or told us that the secret of his energy lay in that chocolate drink.
He is an un-solved conundrum that stardom and humility can be juxtaposed.
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