The Hindu Business Line : Sports telecast makes one a Buddhist

Satpal Singh’s akhada at the Chhatrasal Stadium produced Sushil Kumar who won a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics in the men’s 66 kg freestyle wrestling. In an interview in the Indian Express, Satpal Singh remarks: “It’ll never last. After 10 days, there will be nobody here. You all will forget, and nobody will remember us. I’m not lying.” Truly, the sports pages are back to cricket with detailed pieces on 100 years of Bradman and the rain washed one-dayer between Sri Lanka and India. Only our sports pages can serve up articles on a one-dayer which was never played apart from foreign wire services applauding an England victory against South Africa in a one-dayer.

Giving Mahendra Singh Dhoni, with a pathetic Test record, the Khel Ratan award suggests our preferences; in every corporate TV ad one can see Dhoni smile making one wonder whether he has any time for cricket. Dhoni has the potential to play some unstylish cricket while his performance matches King Khan in ad films. One gold medal and two bronze at Beijing is something most have forgotten by now and thanks be to our sports pages; every correspondent wants to write on cricket as a foreign trip is assured and a few specialise in athletics and other sports to script fillers.

For about two weeks, this writer sat in front of the TV watching DD Sports. One gold and two bronze is good, but for me an Indian gold in athletics is the best. Athletics has a rush about it leaving a butterfly effect on the public which other Olympic events lack in large measure. World Cup football, NBA basketball and the Grand Slams in tennis have a competitive flavour which the same disciplines in Olympics do not have. Any important moment or event and the channel scissored it to help its commentators start a prolonged, sporty dialogue (by referring to play sheets on their tables) like ‘Bindra ne kuch karke dikhaya’ (Bindra has done something) on the 10th day of the Olympics. One thought India’s voluble cricket commentators defined triteness. With Beijing Olympics, DD Sports bested the record. Every day, the ladies and gentlemen on DD Sports talked of Abhinav Bindra while Raymond came out with a badly crafted capsule on Phelps, the US swimmer.

Was it not possible for our private channels to show a daily 60-minute capsule and why did India’s corporate sector abandon the Games? The spectacle of Kenenisa Bekele, Bolt, Dibaba and many others was drably captured by Indian print and DD Sports, conveying little of the style to anyone sitting in front of a TV set in India. For about 15 days, this writer attained Buddhist Nibbana (Nirvana in Sanskrit) viewing DD Sports. One became a genuine Buddhist by refusing to get upset over any part of the DD fare; one never despaired of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry or the Sports Ministry where Mr. M.S. Gill could not place Pullela Gopichand. “Who are you,” he is reported to have asked Gopichand, a shuttler who was once the All-England champion.

There is a story that a cola manufacturer approached the shuttler for an ad shot which Gopi politely turned down. “Cola is bad for sportspersons and I do not drink it. So I cannot promote it,” he told the cola firm. A refreshing change from our cricketers who will promote potassium cyanide if well packed. Suresh Kalmadi stomped out in anger, say TV channels when the gentleman thinks he helped Bindra to get a gold.

“Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if you are asked; by these three steps you will become divine,” says the Buddha and one verily experienced divinity. They have done their best, one told one’s self like a Buddhist; a Buddhist monk would have appreciated my tolerance.

When the Indian commentators furiously did a job with their tongues, one put the TV on mute and waited quietly for some live sports to deck the TV screen. My son Ganesh bought a new 29 inch Sony TV set a couple of days ahead of the Olympics to view the Bird’s Nest; the old set would have sufficed. For long, one has been told DD has little technology and lesser manpower and yet all of them will get a 30 per cent pay hike with the Pay Commission ruling. In a private channel, the bosses would have acted differently. Nagu, my friend, has a name for Doordarshan: “Dukhi Darshan”, he calls it and as a viewer it was sadness. Switch on DD Sports today and the Olympic events are being shown and will be there till London Olympics in 2012.

Many believe Indian sports is into some sort of a renaissance. Youth is up and away say some comparing the 3 medal haul to 1991 economic reforms (which, however, lies botched up for the last five years). Bindra spent his own cash as he could afford to. That cannot be said of other sports persons. I.M. Vijayan, the footballer, sold groundnuts for a living. Most sports in India are run by government bodies with politicians at the top refusing to quit after years of mess. An example: Indian hockey (men and women) was absent in Beijing. KPS Gill was removed after years of killing the game and today there is some sort of an ad hoc body with retired hockey players in a scrum to lead the game.

There is no plan to revive hockey. Some want foreign coaches while others would prefer Indian hockey players who have never played on astro turf. Most young players continue to play on grass as there are not many astro pitches. Our senior hockey players cannot last a full match on the field including extra-time. No facility for sports medicine, no technology, nothing – when China in the next four years could be somewhere near the top in hockey.

Of course, a dictatorship, like in China, can get anything done but that misses the point that the Chinese as individuals would also like to excel. The Chinese have created an icon for sports – Bird’s Nest – and will be breeding fresh talent in the future. They would have, like the East European bloc, forced their players into hardship; but at the end of the day, when a Chinese man or woman wins a gold he or she is proud for himself or herself and then for the nation. It showed when they wore the golds around their necks.

For this writer, hockey for a start, should be entirely taken out of the government. Indian Government reduces everything to ashes. Indian corporates beam with corporate responsibility. If that be so why cannot one or two corporate houses adopt hockey as a sport and give it all to win a gold in the London Olympics? Personally, one would request Mr. Narayana Murthy of Infosys and Mr. Aziz Premji of Wipro to come together and help hockey by adopting at least 20-25 young players with Dhanraj Pillay as a consultant.

P. Devarajan

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