At a time when the monsoon clouds recede from the Indian landmass the Olympic season at Rio is coming to an end. While monsoons bring with it, the positives of good harvest and prosperity so also it gives us a taste of floods and disasters. This thirty-first Olympics bought in glories from stalwarts like Michel Philips , Usain bolt, Mo Farah , and Simone Biles with the US tallying high as expected in the medal tally . It also bought disappointments and despair among individuals and nations alike.
Well as the clouds of this sporting event recedes we as a sub-continental nation-- with more than a billion people with most of them young – return back with just two medals. Let us console that the grace of the nation , at least marginally, was saved by few outstanding ladies. While Sindhu and Sakshi came up with medals , Dipa with Lalitha Babur bought in hope . The glory of a traditionally patriarchal society with gender biases was thus upheld by these females. Sakshi ‘s win in the male-dominated sport of Wrestling on the background of her coming from the infamous land of female infanticide conveys thus the right message:
As like the monsoon, our contingent saw many disasters too. Hockey which was our traditional grace saver did not move ahead beyond the quarter-final . Similarly, individual star performers from tennis and shooting went down the line of expectation. Poor Narsinh Yadav turns up into a doped tragedy and the list goes on
When the game closes we come home with a bronze and a silver and a whole nation rejoices in line with its culture – content on whatever you get, I recall a Pakistani tweet ..''they get one and they rejoice as like 'getting 100
The game also has had its socio-political tamashas. One of India’s top pulp fiction author who stinks with elitism got trolled for a remark on non-performance of athletes proving that whatever she speaks and writes is just indigested gas: The Delhi walla Sports Minister invites the wrath and embarrassment for the rude and unruly behaviour of members of his entourage. An unduly large crowd of babus and cronies from the Indian Olympic association and sports ministry had an opportunity to behave as in the Delhi railway station at the Olympic village. We also heard a relative of IOA head going on a Rio retreat in the garb of being a sport doctor.
As like during the monsoon this Olympics also convinces us about our seasonally affected disorders which come because our sports machinery is infested by nepotism and in efficiency . While Gopichand has proved how an individual's training and mentoring can yield result the sports ministry has shown how a billion nation of mostly aspiring youngsters can be held ineffective through the web of ineffective bureaucracy :
As we wait for the next Olympics in Tokyo as like we wait for our monsoons , let us be cross- fingered whether it is going to be thumbs down or a thumps up:
