An Olympic Lament

Now that we have finally won an individual Olympic gold medal, we are in the unfortunate predicament of actually having to pay attention to the Olympic games in Beijing. Until yesterday, we could easily just turn our collective attention to the discombobulations of our batsmen facing the great Sri Lankan whatchamacallit tricksters. We could easily claim to be disinterested in the Olympics - and who could argue with that attitude? After all, we are the reigning 20/20 cricket world champions, are we not?

Now alas, everyone is asking the question. THE QUESTION. Why only now? Why just one? These are discomforting queries that will not go away no matter how many free 1st A/C railway passes or Air India tickets are grandly awarded to Abhinav Bindra. There will be the obligatory interviews with the Suresh Kalmadis of the world, who will crow about how this solitary gold medal represents the new India, and the aspirations of its people. There will be many more Chief Ministers of states that have no connection to Mr. Bindra, who will throw hard earned taxpayer money at Mr. Bindra in the hope of some reflected glory. Why I should vote for the Chattisgarh chief minister because a competitor from Punjab has just won an Olympic medal, I have not quite fathomed. Mr. Chidambaram and his colleagues, envious of the attention lavished upon China by a naïvely fawning world media, have already foolishly started making noises about hosting the Olympics in 2020. What a thought! Why would we want to draw more unwanted attention to our "Khel Samrats"?? (By that I mean the babus who run the sports ministry. Which -come to think of it- why do we need a ministry to run sports?)

I wonder whether these wise souls have pondered about the fact that at the moment I write this, the much touted "new India" that this gold medal supposedly represents, actually stands on par with (the presumably "new") Azerbaijan and Thailand! And trust me - that status will be fleeting. Once the action shifts to the weightlifting and boxing events, most impoverished banana republics will be among the medals, and we will be left with a tally that even Robert Mugabe could afford to purchase with his toilet paper currency! (Incidentally, even Zimbabwe already has one silver medal, and one world/olympic record that will likely translate into gold or silver within the next day or two)

Fear not, my friends. This discomfort will also pass, like many others previously (remember Prakash Padukone and P. Gopichand of All England fame?). Only 6 more days remain before the ODI series with Sri Lanka - Dhoni's boys will take the field, and we (appropriately relieved) will go back to our collective slumber.....until London 2012!