Friday, August 15, 2008

Abhinav Bindra Bharat Ki Shaan

Al last India won a individual gold medal in Olympics. Its been a long wait. But i guess Rajwardhan Rathore raised the bar set by Leander paes and Karmam Malleshwari by getting a silver medal 4 years back . Now Abhinav has done India proud by getting the gold.

Gone are the days where the the trip to Olympics was only to participate.Winning was not important. I remember watching Flop Show (comedy show)by Jaspal Bhatti in Doordarshan where Jaspal Bhatti is interviewing a sportsman training for the games.He asks him "so sir do you hope to win a medal". He replies-- I don't know about winning , but I will definitely buy a T.V and VCR when I come back".I guess the participants are more serious in recent years. After the flying sikh Milka Singh , P.T. Usha came closest to win a Track and field medal .She missed a bronze model by one hunderedth of a second. 8 years later Leander paes won a bronze medal in tennis, karmam malleshwari won a bronze in weight lifting. After that India has won at least one medal in Olympics.


The media played their part too. As usual they went about interviewing every body from the school teacher,friends, parents , aunts ,sister, brother in law etc etc.But no one thought of interviewing his coaches who were with him during the competition. In this age of "breaking news" reporting the media tried adding spice to the occasion by coming out with a report that Abhinavs gun was tampered.This was later rubbished by Abhinav. I thank him for that. Then the news of cash awards started pouring in. (Bihar /UP/MP/ Maharashtra/ Lakshmi Mittla). All the amounts sounded paltry as compared to the 200 crore hotel gifted by his father . Amidst this reporting, it was funny to read few comments being posted in news portals .Comments like "if i had money like abhinavs father then I would have won the gold medal". I feel like replying to him "You idiot, its not the money which matters, its 14 years of dedication that won him that medal".No amount of money can buy that.

So hats off to you Abhinav for winning that medal and making us forget the defeat in the test series at the hands of sri lanka.( I am an indian and a cricket fan too)


Chak De India

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