India'S Sporting Legacy: Yes, We Can!
I would like to begin this article with a story. This story begins in Islampur, a small village in Sangli district in Maharashtra, with an apparently friendly wrestling match between the pampered son of a village headman and a 12-year-old boy. Stunningly, the 12-year-old wins and his reward is death threats from the villagers who treat this as an insult to their headman. This forces the 12-year-old to flee the village straight from the wrestling ring, hopping onto a goods truck with nothing but his winning purse, the then princely sum of Rs 12. Without his parents’ knowledge, he is now in Pune and joins the Indian army where he takes up boxing and plays competitively, being seen as a rising sports star in the army. A few years down the line, he requests a posting in Kashmir and, soon after, he is part of a regiment staving off enemy fire. He is the target of 7 bullets in the 1965 war, being hit on the skull, spine, cheek and thighs and then having a jeep run over him to add to it all. He also loses his memory and forgets his own name. One day, he falls off his hospital bed and hits his head on the floor. This helps him regain his memory.
It is only 6 years later that his family traces him and comes to visit. Seeing his condition, they refuse to take him back, seeing him as an unmanageable burden. This turn of events motivates the young man to come up with a fancy plan to kill himself. As he lies in wait to execute his plan, he plays a game with his hospital attendant and wins Rs. 40,000. This causes a change of heart. He checks himself out of hospital, and takes up competitive sport again. Vijay Merchant hears his story, sponsors his training and Murlikant Petkar goes on to win swimming gold for India at the 1972 Paralympic Games in Heidelberg, Germany, breaking the world record of the time. This was India’s first Paralympic gold medal! Petkar had also participated in 3 other events at the Games, including the javelin throw, making the finals in all, having also represented the country in table tennis. When I first read this story in the book Courage Beyond Compare by Sanjay and Medini Sharma, I could barely comprehend that journey. I promise you, I didn’t make it up. Murlikant Petkar’s story is truly unique and without parallel. The journeys and stories of each of our nation’s sporting achievers fascinate me. I am humbled when I realize the obstacles and challenges that need to be overcome. The context to the achievement cannot be forgotten either. All this is happening in an environment that may not always understand how to be supportive or why it is important to encourage athletic achievement.
The athletes’ journeys, battles and victories may be their own. But to view this phenomenon as just their individual journeys is to lose an opportunity to build a legacy of sport in our country. This is a subject I am deeply passionate about. As a 10-year-old, I remember being overwhelmed with emotion when Kapil Dev ran back to catch Viv Richards in the 1983 World Cup final. When he lifted the World Cup I was overjoyed, in part because I could feel something change within me, and in equal measure I felt this came as just reward to my cricket-crazy father who had invested so much emotion and time into this game he loved. So, on the one hand it kicked off a new journey, mine, and was an important part of another, my father’s. It might have been all too much for a 10-year-old to comprehend then, but knowing what I do now, I sometimes wonder what went through the heads of those 11 men in the lunch break as they went out to defend 183 in 60 overs against Clive Lloyd’s mighty West Indians? Were they perhaps, somewhere in the back of their minds, empowered with the knowledge that India with her 8 Olympic hockey medals was capable of winning on the world stage? I would like to think the deeds of Dhyan Chand and those who followed him contributed in some way to the belief that victory was indeed possible. A couple of decades later, there came a young boy from a small town. He achieved, he over achieved. He won everything there was. He made the country proud. On the way, he put his small town on the world map. Today, if people in Australia and West Indies know about Ranchi, I think it has a lot to do with MS Dhoni. Ranchi’s economy has grown at a rapid pace. A few years ago, I came across a research report and was amazed to find an economic phenomenon called “The Dhoni Effect”. It is very different from the “Dravid Effect” which is cited when anyone scores at less than a run a ball these days.
Rajgopal of Ernst & Young says, about this: “The Dhoni Effect identifies a phenomenon where rapidly growing small towns of India are taking centrestage. This research highlights the growing affluence levels, increased awareness due to media penetration, improved physical connectivity, and significant changes in consumption patterns with high aspiration levels of small-town India that are compelling marketers to take notice. ”Today, there are more youngsters from small towns dreaming of and aspiring for great things in different walks of life. To me, this is a journey started by the Dhyan Chand’s and the many hockey players that gave us a sporting heritage to be proud of, it was kept alive by our Kapil Dev’s and their outrageous aspirations and brought to their full potential by the likes of MS Dhoni. I must also narrate the story from my days playing U-19 cricket for India. I love sharing this one. We had two bowlers in the U-19 India team. One; a fast bowler from Uttar Pradesh – he spoke only Hindi. The other bowler, a spinner from Kerala who spoke only Malayalam. Neither of them knew any other language. This was alright while they were bowling – as captain, I used a lot of head nodding, sign language, and my limited Hindi to set their fields. But I will never forget the one game when they happened to come together at the crease while we were batting. In the dressing room, we were in splits, wondering how they were going to manage the business of a partnership, calling for runs or sharing the strike. Neither man could understand a word of what the other was saying and yet, they batted and batted, and put on a 100-run partnership for the last wicket. All the opposition sledging literally went over their heads and they just had a good time speaking the common language of sport, partnerships, and the aspiration to do well together. Isn’t it amazing that sport can have such an impact on our nation and its people? When we see sporting magic happen, it is exhilarating and inspiring, and it must motivate us to use the full potential of sport in our nation-building exercise.
Around 2008, I was in the middle of a lean patch. The runs had dried up and I was on the wrong side of 30 – not ideal territory in Indian cricket. I needed to pick myself up. I wanted to. I knew I had at least another couple of years of cricket left in me. Around this time, I watched, with glee as, Abhinav Bindra shot his way to an Olympic Gold in Beijing. I still remember the adrenalin rush that I felt at the time. Watching that Indian flag go up and listening to the national anthem moved me. Reading Abhinav’s autobiography was fascinating for me. I think his story must be read by anyone on the quest for excellence. His obsession for perfection stood out. He did absolutely everything in his power to seek perfection. No compromises, no shortcuts! He had a good team around him who could match his obsession. They made sure everything was perfect, even small things like shaving a millimetre off the sole of one of his shoes to achieve the right stance. It had to be perfect and it was! Abhinav could have easily sat back and enjoyed being good at his sport, but he was able to push himself to be great. He found and took all the support he could get to learn about his art and give it his best shot. Abhinav’s achievement emboldened me to give it that last push with my own career, to dig deep again and do whatever it took, as difficult as it might seem. His ‘no shortcuts’, ‘no excuses’ approach is something we can all aspire for, in whatever tasks, big or small, that we undertake.
The patchwork solutions, the temporary fixes, the cut corners, the jugaad we are so proud of in our work and our relationships may well get the job done, but does this approach truly make us feel alive, or for that matter allow us to live to our full potential and push the boundaries of our capabilities? If I had a daughter, I would tell her the story of MC Mary Kom. I have two young sons and they have heard her story from me too. Every time I think of Mary, I am astounded by the way she has defied so many odds to go on and be an Olympic medallist. In her journey, I believe that she has broken down so many barriers for young Indian girls, or for that matter, anyone fighting the odds. Mary, Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal, Dipa Karmakar and P. V. Sindhu, among others, have redefined what this generation’s girls and their parents think about sport. They no doubt stand on the shoulders of the PT Usha’s, Shiny Abraham’s, and MD Valsamma’s who fought the early battles. As each breaks down these barriers, the next generation is watching eagerly. In 2014, I began working closely with a few of our country’s junior athletes who aspire to achieve at the Olympics and Paralympics, through GoSports Foundation. I work with the athletes on their goals and approaches, and the team grants financial scholarships to assist them with their sporting expenses. A couple of years later, I took on the fascinating role of being the India junior coach. I have been very impressed with the poise and confidence with which our young athletes carry themselves, and have learnt a lot from our interactions. You may ask why I tell the stories of these athletes. To me these are more than stories, these are dots that are beginning to join to create a larger picture and explain this confidence and poise. Besides those I have mentioned, many others like Leander Paes, Prakash Padukone, Geet Sethi, Gopichand, Vishy Anand, Sushil Kumar, Pankaj Advani, to name only a few, have permanently changed the narrative of Indian sport. Some are still playing and others are giving back in different capacities. Their achievements are no longer anecdotal, and there are more and more people joining them in support every day. I have grown up in an environment when the dominant narrative of Indian sporting achievement was, “We Can’t”.
These achievers have fought hard, built on each other’s body of work and knowledge, and have today changed the script to, “We Can”. Working with the next generation of these achievers, I am constantly amazed to see the long way we have come – the prevailing belief is “We Can and We Will”; this self-belief is exhilarating, and yet, needs to be tempered and paired with the requisite skills and attitudes that are essential ingredients of sustained excellence. We almost take our confidence in certain sports for granted today because our earlier sporting heroes have eaten away at practically every stereotype or excuse one can think of over the years. It is a gift we have been given and the “We Can” now needs to feed into an “I Can” attitude for every Indian who has the aptitude and desire to insert the fabric of sport into their lives. Whether urban or rural, boy or girl, wealthy or not, able bodied or not, regardless of region, caste or religion. Talent is agnostic. And aspiration is free.
