I am a cricket fan myself but in the same way I love other games too.. Yes India won the coveted world cup that too very convincingly for which we have congratulated the players, ourselves, the board, the Prime Minister, the losing team for giving chance to India to win etc. etc. Then what happens, IPL starts running for nearly 45 days - and then other tours/matches etc - But don't you think we are giving too much importance to cricket at the cost of other games. We were once winners of 7 olympic gold and three 3 silver medals for Hockey till 1980 and after that politics entered hockey and - now where has hockey gone? India did win olympics gold for shooting by Abhinva Bindra but have you seen the way he was treated in CWG games? Our cricket team did not even have the patriotic sense to play for CWG but still we keep them in the pedestal as if no other game matters. Here I would like to give two examples - When our cricket team was being pampered with crores and crores of rupees in cash and kind, we also saw one poor upcoming state volley ball player Arunima who lost her leg when she was pushed from the train and was being offered a pittance of Rs. 25000/- at the first instance by none other than the sports minister. When the proud girl refused that amount saying she was not a beggar then the amount was raised. Second instance is when the veteran hockey olympic gold winners were feliciated in Delhi by the Sports Ministry - Can you believe when they were called to honour their earlier triumph of wining gold for India. they were asked to pay for their dinner on the night after the felicitation ceremony. How much their dinner would have cost? Maximum Rs. 3000/- ? Even this expenses could not be borne by the sports ministry whereas 10 times that amount was being spent on the drinks supplied to cricketeers. We have Somdeve Burman, we have a good football team. we have a world # 1 carrom player but how many of them are known to the public whereas due to publicity given, even the common man know that toothpaste Dhoni is using or which side he is sleeping. We need to discuss a lot in this issue as too much pampering of any game will only lead to 'match fixing'.. let us discuss friends..
OMG !! And there I see no replies for such a meaningful post :bonk Duh !! I completely accept to whatever you've said. All I can find out of this win is an excessive compulsion to watch more and more until one get stumped out of it. Same had happened in 1983. We won. Bragged about it. Dreamed of doing it once again. But got stumped with match fixing. It comes with the price of meeting the huge expectations. Abhinav's story was not a pleasure to read. So is the story of Arunima. What? Do we have a best carrom player? I didn't even knew about it. But you know what, whatever the matter is, it finally comes to an abrupt end of pointing fingers on the politicians and big shot socialites. Its high time that we stop doing it and get some working brains on it. Let me give my small opinion. I've watched so many clips / short films in Youtube. May be a budding film maker or even a social worker can work on coming up with a video on these people. The #1 carrom player, the football team, or whichever sports they like. This may be a form of publicity. If the video get popular or even gets noticed by a big company or just the mere knowledge to the general public about that particular person in a particular sport does the job. Who knows? Even a single act can make a huge difference. Lets hope..
