A medal for a country of 1 Billion.

Abhinav Bindra...You did us proud. A country of 1billion now has 1 gold medalist, a new poster boy who for a change doesn’t play cricket. A gold medal that was long deserving for a country. During childhood, a naive me always used to look through the medal standings and used to be disappointed seeing that my country was never in the list. Just like your dreams and your parent’s dreams, you have fulfilled a generation's dream for sure.

A dissection for the victory would clearly show the lack of support from the local authorities .if it wasn’t for a rich father and a talented coach it is highly unlikely that we would all have seen an Indian Flag be raised high above the others at Beijing. The victory of one Mr. Abhinav Bhindra must prove as an eye opener to the various authorities to promote and recognize genuine talent. Up here in a foreign land, you find no words to argue when any of your colleagues chide on why Winning an Olympic medal took India so Long. Blaming cricket for the gloom and doom of all other sports in India serves no purpose, baseball is popular in the States, Basketball is, American Football is, yet still they excel in the Olympics. The infrastructure in India is something that needs to be worked on. In Trivandrum they used to have a Sports School namely GV RAJA SPORTS school, which was expected to nurture the finest sports talents around Kerala.But whenever it came to school level tourneys most often than not i used to find some other school team bagging the cup.Kerala has produced some fine Asian and national level atheletes,but most often than not they have found the International gap a big too wide to bridge. Indian authorities must take this as a wake-up call rather than run around to take credit for this Olympic gold. As Abhinav Bindra quite bluntly put across, This is a victory for his Family, and then his country”. His dad had the money as well as the faith to support his son. Not to mention that the son was dedicated talented and hardworking ,else if money would have been the easy route to success we would have had Mukesh Ambani Lifting 176Kg in men 62Kg weightlifting and Anil Ambani pippin phelps in 100m..What if ABhinav was born in a poor man's hut, would he have received an iota of support. So a lot of these things need to be taken into consideration. Cricket’s popularity is on a slide. Soon 50 over cricket and test cricket would lose its charm amongst the masses, IF not Now then When. India used to be a powerhouse in hockey, but the current plight of Indian hockey is heartbreaking to say the least. The authorities have to shoulder a lot of blame for the downfall of Indian Hockey. The Jimmy George Era in Indian Volleyball when India was third in the Asian games, Jimmy George was playing for Italian Volleyball Clubs sounds like a fairy story .The less said about Indian Football the better.

While we take in the gold euphoria let us not forget PT USHA, MILKA SINGH and the likes who had missed out on Olympic medals fighting against well trained, professional athletes. My heart goes out to them who didn't have an Apjit Bindra backing their abilities. Hope no more PT USHa's and Milka Singhs would miss out on medals due to being ill equipped and pray that 2012 turns out to be an even better Olympics for India

Chaar Patte....

Cards are something that makes your memories colorful,But there are some that brings you memories of a special kind like

1. Report Card-The dreaded yellow piece of paper that had followed me through 12 years of school life. I believe that the fear of the card has molded my likings to the whole world of cards. barring the first 4 years or something of my academic life I believe there hasn’t been much tht i could cheer about when ever I got this card (C’mon Jose uncle never used to have his report card to who used to stay for every second trip & who was first in the line for collecting the much loved BABA batJ), Rather the first though tht would pass through my mind was of finding a proper location to hide this until the teacher demands it back. Getting the thing signed by my dear parents wasn’t that tough an ask, cos every time the progress card was presented 10 minutes before I had to leave to school.Tht was the safest way to negotiate and persuade your parents to sing the damn wretched thing, and that evening would be one when u prayed the electricity staff to go on a power strike.

2. WWF Trump cards-This was really something that had caught the teens of TVM by the scruff of their neck. There used to be a huge demand for WWF trump cards,WWF sticker’s ,T shirts featuring Luke and Butch!!!(if they ever featured in WWF is an enigma)and all those weird wrestling things. Schools had to impose strict bans on bringing trump cards or for that matter even WWF sticker's to school. But my memories of this breed was the great one sided Trump card games we used to have during intervals.Rahul Albert -the daring, rebellious friend of mine would always bring his pack .This automatically gave him the right to be the one to shuffle the cards and divide it, and every time the cards were divided it was never surprising that Hulk Hogan and yokozuna would never find a place in our hand. Well for those of you who wouldn’t know what hulk and Yokzuna meant, the cricketing equivalent would be having Murali and mendis in your team while playing against the current Indian cricket team. I have still no idea what brought about this craze for WWF superstars whereby Bret hart and Shawn Michaels became the hot topics of the discussion. And yeah as it was always the "elders" in the class used to have a script of their own .I still remember one close buddy of mine telling me that Andre the giant had died by bursting his biceps:).The height of this craze was well highlighted when during one of our serious class quiz sessions conducted during our L.A period an innocent and naive anoop p walked right to the front and asked"Class,What is the Biceps of Scott Steiner’. That really stumped Geetha Maam and the whole class burst into laughter.


3. Centerfresh Cricket Cards-This was another set of cards that replaced the craze for WWF trump cards. I dun remember us really playing something with these card but it was more of a collection thingy. If my memory doesn't fail me, Richard Haldee was the rarest. But like all crazes this too died a slow death. yet another waste of parent’s hard earned money.


4. Pepsi Stuff cards-. I almost forgot this thing. This was probably the first coolest”yo” collection in every youths’ wallet. This gave you some privileges is shops in Andheri and Connaught Place. !!!!!!Why make i. Well the pepsi stuff card was one of its kinds during our teenage. But still the Ad campaign had caught the frenzy of the youth and soon Pepsi crowns, something the local “aaakri” would also not collect was in hot demand. Well to get a stuff card u needed to get 50 pepsi crowns and 25 rs cash...And for those 50 crowns i still remember searching the waste baskets Chinnu’s Restaurant. :(

Credit Cards and Identity cards do not come under this category as they seldom give you good dreams and sweet nostalgia.Oh yeah and By the way please refrain yourself from self inflicted torture by giving Sing is King a miss…Worthless horrible Movie.