SINDHU IS OUR OWN... AND STOKES?











When  P.V. Sindhu bagged Gold at the latest Badminton World Championship, like all my fellow-Indians, I, too, felt proud and rejoiced in her glory. It’s a hard-earned glory… and, it inspired all of us.


Alongside, on the same day, in the Test-cricket contest, England Vs Australia – which the cricket world hails famously as ‘Ashes’ – the England batsman, Ben Stokes, scored something which had enthused and inspired most of the cricket fans all over the world. It’s strange – at the same time very heart-warming – to observe this trend: how success and achievements inspire all of us regardless of, often, our nationalities!






Sindhu is our own… and Stokes?


Ironically, I hadn’t watched both these events… I got enthused and inspired only by watching how others around me had been!


“All the world loves a winner and no time to spare for a loser.” When I recall this old saying, I feel sad and bad, too.


Nobody plays to lose. And, nobody can win every time either. Someone will, certainly, defeat Sindhu in future… Stokes can never repeat the same stroke-play every time…


That’s why it’s called ‘Sports’… and, that’s why they are called ‘Sportsmen and Sports women’. And, yes, that’s why the spirit of the game is called ‘Sportsmanship’…


We win some, we lose some. As much as we learn to bask in the glory of our winning, we all must learn not to lose our hearts when we lose our matches… If we haven’t learnt to accept our defeats, congratulate the winner, I think, we have learnt nothing on the sports field.


I have young kids coming to learn from me their regular academic subjects. Some of them are into sports – Football, Cricket, Tennis, Squash etc. It’s tough for them to do the balancing act… When they miss classes and skip their homework, we teachers shout at them. Their parents had spotted their talents quite early and have been encouraging them to pursue their sports interest. But, many of them know the limitations of their children… How far they can go… whether sports can be a full-time profession for them… whether they can do reasonably well in life without the academic back-up etc…


I believe in the theory: ‘If you really want it, you will have it’…


“But, ‘you’ means ‘You’… not your parents,” I scream at my own young students who bunk classes and skip homework with the hope of being a Sindhu or Stokes…


Have Sindhu’s and Stokes’ teachers screamed at them in school… that is, when they bunked classes and skipped homework? Only Sindhu and Stokes will be able to answer that question. But, as a teacher of my own probables… I, believe, that the teachers must have!


And, that’s good for the probables… “Hello, it doesn’t take six weeks for the Chinese Bamboo to grow ninety-feet tall… It takes five years and six weeks… Five long years under the ground… and only six weeks above the ground!”


Let me repeat what I said before: “You will have it, if you want it.” Only be ready to be there ‘under the ground’ for five years… ‘Preparing’!



GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: 1. Swarajya  2. South China Morning Post

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