At long last, at least, there is a silver medal to India’s kitty. Just the day before, India bagged another medal. That was bronze. It summed up India’s performance twenty-four hours before the curtains drawn on Rio Olympics.
At a cursory glance, one can feel pity for this performance. If one cares to look at the medal tally, even Baharin, Fiji and Jordan, to mention just a few, are found shining with gold. India, a land of one hundred twenty five crore, is nowhere near them.
Yet there are Dipa Karmakar, P.V. Sindhu, Sakshi. Yet they are there, despite oversized Indian officials reportedly are “busy” elsewhere, except where they are badly wanted to be.
Yet they are there, despite the absence of any sports medicine doctor, because the Chief Medical Officer knows nothing about that; he is “efficient” in only distributing painkillers whoever goes to him for help.
Dipika, losing the gymnastics medal by a whisker, went to the summit meet without a physio. Because sending a physio was said to be a drain on exchequer. It is only after she reached the final, and there is much hue and cry about the absence of a physio, the physio was sent hours before the final!
Yet Sindhu won the silver in spite of the sports minister, whose chamchas ( in pure Indian context, can be roughly translated as henchmen) reportedly clashed with the security personnel in order to barge into the stadium with their neta ( again, in the present Indian context, can be roughly translated as muscleman). The Olympic committee threatened to take away minister’s accreditation card if such thing happened again.
Yet Sakshi won the bronze in wrestling in spite of village elders of Hariana, the place she hailed from, objected to her going to the male-dominated Wrestling training centre. When she refused to budge,they unleashed boys after her to intimidate her.
All failed: the Indian sports minister, Indian officials, and khap panchayat of Hariana. The Indian women, from their humble backgrounds, conquered on the 70th anniversary of Independence.