Fifteen minutes of glory

By Pete Sampras8217; exacting standards, the Indian sport hero does not quite measure up. He/she has everything that Sampras has prescribed in his formula for unprecedented sporting fame. The game, the heart, the mind8230; But at the end of the year, a heartbeat away from the next millennium, when they sit down to accord the heroes their rightful places in history, the question is, who exactly is India8217;s hero?

In this endless exercise, there has always been more misses than hits. Given the absolutely parochial mindset of the average Indian fan, that is predictable. The seeming underdevelopment of Indian sport, which has been made really stark by the constant bombardment of pictures from the cricket fields on the tube also madethe man on the street believe that there cannot be a hero for him, but from the 22-yard strip.

During the last days of the year, there were enough indications that the hero, for once, may have emerged far away from the cricket field. But then, Indian cricket heroes have long grown beyond the dreams of ordinary Indians. They are somewhere high up in stratosphere and have become objects of fantasy, not flesh-and-blood creatures.

If the 25-year-old Sachin Tendulkar rewrote most of the one-day cricket script this year, there was this dark, long-haired man from Khadki, a village near Pune, who led India8217;s biggest moment in sport this year. But then how many millions watched Dhanraj Pillay shed tears on the victory podium at Bangkok with the gold medal dazzling in the floodlights? How many really know about Jyotirmayee Sikdar, that small-built Calcutta housewife, who won two gold medals? What about Ashok Shandilya, an ordinary Central Railway employee, who won two billiards gold and after returning home unsunghas gone back to search for a better place to practice?

Suddenly, the Pillays and the Dingko Singhs have become the most enduring benchmarks in Indian sport; Sikdar, the latest queen of the track. These are the real superstars, who have brought home honour and gold. But why did they have to wait so long to be counted among the pantheons? And they are no fools. They know their 15 minutes of fame and two and a half seconds of TV bytes won8217;t last and the crumbs thrown their way by those who have jumped on to the gravy train will also disappear.

Pray, has Pillay done any less for the country than, say, Tendulkar? Playing the game that has long been designated 8220;the national game8221;, he has crossed tougher barriers than any cricketer will ever have to, suffered the slings and arrows of a neglected sport and, finally, at the autumn of his career, has brought home a medal that had proved elusive for more than three decades.He is the real Indian hero, who has so perfectly embodied the triumph of an average Indianagainst adversity. Or for that matter, the Manipuri lad who struck it rich going strictly by the Samprasian game-heart-mind theory. For Dingko, the problems may have only begun. To be identified as a pan-Indian hero, he got to do much more hard work than he normally puts in to earn a knock-out decision. After soaking in all the glory that8217;s now coming his way, Dingko will soon be dropped as a no-no, only to be resurrected by the time the next Asian Games or Olympics is around.

The sheer callousness our sports administrators display towards these true sporting heroes was very much in evidence when the contingent was left to spend a night on the floor of a Mumbai airport after their flight was diverted from Delhi to Mumbai. If this had happened just a couple of days after Bangkok, their situation a couple of months from now can well be imagined. Of course, there was no tears shed, no voices raised. Isn8217;t this enough proof that these heroes and their achievements have already been lost on the great Indianpeople? Even at this hour the basic courtesies were denied to them. That, in itself, reflects the true nature of Indian sport.

No cricket team has suffered the ignominy of spending the night at an airport. If at all they had to, the doors of the VVIP lounge would have opened in a jiffy. As Dhanraj Pillay rightly said, this is something which can never be forgiven.

Poor Pillay. He can do precious little apart from talking. After wading through many a felicitation, Dhanraj Pillay will get down to the serious business of coming to terms with life8217;s realities. First, he has to find a job as his employers, the Mahindras, are dismantling their hockey team.Mahindras8217; decision could be purely recession-driven. But administrators of Indian sport cannot possibly use that as an excuse for rubbishing their heroes when they were down and out and then welcoming them as long-lost prodigals after they had made it on their own steam. The story of Indian sport has been one of wrong officials in the wrong sport at the wrongplace, all the time.

Officials, who have never seen a sports field in their good days, have the audacity to run down players from the sidelines, accusing them of not trying enough. Where else but in India can such sheer arrogance flourish? But that, unfortunately, is culture of the Indian sports federations which spend a fortune on the meetings and travels of their officials and have very little left after this to administer to their players.

The gold medal winning kabaddi team almost did not make it to Bangkok because the federation split in two and the officials were at war with each other. After many court hearings and desperate pleas, the team just about made it and got to pick up the gold, which was theirs anyway.

Indian sport officials simply revel in the power-without-responsibility scenario they work in. Their counterparts abroad have fixed responsibilities and are paid a professional wage for their efforts. Here, it is all honorary work and presumably it is the love of the game that makes themtake up its administration. But it is a 8220;love8221; that is destructive in the extreme and has, ultimately, done nothing to make life any better for the sportsperson. Three cheers for Indian sport.