Games people play

I do not follow tennis. But the Men s final at Wimbledon was hard to miss. We watched the first hour, attended a wedding reception and were back for last part of the match. The wedding reception was full of heavy weights of the political arena but the match pulled us home. The play of emotions on the players faces just as it ended was something. I could feel Andy Murray's pain. Since I do not understand much of the finer points of the game, I was watching the emotions freely. The effort gone in, the strategy, the coaching, the number of people working for the player's win and the livelihood of people dependent on that was all weighing in the air. It was not easy for both of them. Murray just could not talk and ready to burst into tears which he eventually did. The self control vanished, dejection took over. Inspite of that, he was truthful. He gave credit and it came from the heart. The coach was mighty cheesed. he refused to clap at any point. I thought that attitude was disgusting. Play to win kills the joy of playing. Murray has come till here and is a good player no doubt. I can imagine the hours of coaching he will have to go through and not just the physical training. Roger Federer was controlled in his victory. He said that he was sure Murray would win a Grand Slam. He was happy and he had tears after the match. He was controlling it with his towel. His partner,children and family were thrilled. He was hoping the twins would be awake when he reached home late in the night.

Sarnath Chatterjee an artist is doing hoardings in East London for Olympics. Not your run of the mill hoardings about Play to Win. His hoarding are about losers. They are about what a good player, who has reached till Olympics and then looses, goes through. Its okay to loose. This is very against the grain of the Olympics philosophy. We can all go on debating about this. He said he could not do this work in India as he did not have an Uncle in the Government. Felt sad reading that. True but sad. He is rising above the commercialization of the Olympics, with his work.

Gagan our swimming champ gets a seat in the Olympics thru Universality quota. He did not have money to go for the qualifying rounds of Olympics. He did not have a Big Daddy in the Government and his parents could not afford to pay for his foreign trips. The newspapers say four better deserving candidates not selected for the Olympics Swimming categories. Curse the system, that's all we are capable of. Treat Pinky Pramanik like dirt even before you have any conclusive evidence of her being a criminal. We can blame the Police, the Sports Ministry and the list goes on.

What kind of Sportsmanship we want our children to show? What values are we talking about instilling? Are we going to teach the Blame game to our children?