The Honourable Sports Minister of India, upon his return from the recently held Olympic Games 2016, has taken stock of the remarkable infrastructure, facilities, opportunities, fund allocation (for players and not personal betterment of those involved in the chain of funds disbursement) and collective Government and bureaucratic apathy towards Indians who may have even the slightest interest in sports.
After intense dialogue, discussions and discernment of what is and what should be, the powers that be have listed out the following games that we can compete in right on home turf.
Wrestling – The Freestyle kind that a lot of already indulge in while mounting and alighting metros, buses, trains, planes. Also seen at malls, halls and bazaars.
Archery – for chucking garbage into designated and non-designated places. Special events for those who excel in aiming from moving vehicles.
Athletics – with rising cases in chain, wallet, laptop, mobiles snatching, the sporty-spirits engaged in such activities must have world class training.
Swimming (with special attention to breast stroke) – with a collective male interest in any skin showing by Indian or Foreign women and the pronounced Indian male interest in the woman breast. As a female of the species, get into a crowded transport or area and personally experience how adept Indian men are at breaststroke.
Steeplechase – A common man’s delight, each time he has to get to work on time, get an emergency patient past the hospital gate to the OT, or take a pregnant wife to the OB-GYN just as a VIP cavalcade is passing by.
Shooting – This one has a special significance for the subcontinent. Getting away from the traditional game, we in India and the subcontinent practice this fine game by spitting into potholes, wall corners and lamp posts. Also Indian men, at large, seem to need more practice in shooting their own piss into the man piss pot (as men themselves admit) and on trees and boundary walls (barring those with Hindu Gods’ tiles plastered on them).
Rhythmic Gymnastics – while dancing, stooping, bending backwards to the tune of our modern day lords and masters.
Boxing – God alone knows if we need anything less to wriggle our way out of packed-like-sardines public transport.
Cycling – not just to get away from being / becoming the World Diabetic Capital but also because very soon the roads will be / have been taken over by potholes and Venice like canals on main roads and highways.
Water Polo – As the Monsoon of 2016 (and many monsoons before this) has depicted, our main roads in several cities are naturally ready to host this grand sport, as a special shout back to our royal past.
Rowing – We are perpetually in a ‘row’ with neighbours, the system, the policy implementers, our own family, the other religion, other peoples’s politics and their life. Real or fabricated rows keep all our political parties busy without much else to accomplish.
Relay race – for all the multitude of hands the money (or palm grease, if you will) and favours pass through.
Fencing – this refers to only figurative poking of people around with the sharp edge of the fence and actually involves one’s personal fenced area to encroach upon the other man’s (or the public / government) land.
Handball – I almost didn’t write about it; but it is such a rampant practice that I just had to include it in. Seen prolifically in public areas, on buses, behind office desks and practiced solely by men on their own body part.
Surfing – While Sweden is cutting down its work day to six sharp hours and prohibiting any kind of social media surfing during work hours, we on the other hand, in India, are increasingly spending more hours in office, but half of them surfing the Net for personal entertainment. What’s worse, we have taken the nasty habit into our Parliament too.
Basque pelota – the Minister, in a rare expression of empathy, calls for a revival of this game played officially only in the 1900 Olympics. Given the number of times we ourselves and our documents are tossed against the bureaucratic wall, we seem to have a natural predilection towards the sport.
Tug of War – between our general demands and the crippled supply; between our expectations and the lack of deliverables from those who ought to deliver; between what is and what should be; between the haves and have-nots; between the public and the politicians; between our rights and duties; between the fact of life and our faiths; between life and the difficult cost of living. We definitely would be medal winners here.
Rappelling – While Climbing is, apparently, coming up in Summer Olympics of 2020; we back home have been excelling at our homegrown version of Rappelling for years – each time we take an onerous, uphill task and then attempt to make it easy by kissing the ass of the guy on top and kicking the head of one at the bottom.
While we, and our ruling bunch of some-deserving but mostly undeserving politicians engage in these contests, may the truly meritorious and zealous continue to dream, train, perform and win; in spite of all of us!
L. Aruna Dhir is a Hospitality & Feature Writer and Columnist for some of the world’s highest ranked Hospitality publications including ehotelier.com, Hospitality.Net, Bizcatalyst360.com. Her industry writings are used as references in case studies and hotel schools. A Freelance Writer since 1987, Aruna is also an avid blogger (www.luckyaruna.blogspot.com and www.larunadhir.blogspot.com)