View From The Outer Harbour By: Thalmann Pradeep Pereira
'COKE' RANE … OR … 'PEPSI' PARRIKAR ? The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, which is India's highest award to a sportsperson, has this year been awarded to Lt. Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore who brought glory to the nation by winning a silver medal at the Athens Olympics-2004. Even as we bask in that glory, a few sportspersons have brought disgrace to the nation by taking banned drugs to enhance their performance. Sania Mirza made waves at the Wimbledon by her spirited fight. The Indian cricket team put up a dismal performance at the tri-nation one-day series in Sri Lanka. All in all, examination question paper-setters still feel tempted to ask their students to write a 300-word essay on the same old topic: "Should India Participate in the Olympics?" And the students will still lament that a billion-strong nation cannot produce a handful of champions worth the name. A Sports Policy goes hand-in-hand with a Youth Policy. We have neither. That is why, every Indian feels proud of Sania Mirza, but secretly (and rightly) concludes that one Sania does not make a summer. Indeed, the private sector has chipped in where the government has failed. But again, one sponsorship cannot substitute for a proper budget and a systematic allocation of funds in a planned manner. Instead, even in a small state like Goa, the tale of the Sports Department seems to be the Tale of Two Directors. Nobody knows as to what is the defined role of the Goa Govt.'s Directorate of Sports vis-à-vis the Sports Authority of Goa. Politicians, who are not averse to siphon the sports budget, have been routinely transferring the top officials under the Sports Ministry depending on who is more pliable. The net result is that instead of nurturing talented young sportspersons in the different sports disciplines, the top officials of the sports ministry themselves have become very talented in the game of musical chairs! The various sports bodies are desperately vying with each other for the meagre corporate sponsorships that have now turned into a trickle instead of the earlier flow. At least one prominent business house wound up its football team citing financial constraints, while other football teams are simply waiting for the highest bidder to come along. All that they can promise in return is the "privilege" of tagging the business house's name as the prefix to their original name. One can loudly wonder as to what Goa's politics would look like if each of our politicians were forced to tag a corporate sponsor's name as a prefix to his own personal name, at least for the period that the sponsorship continues. Coke and Pepsi, for example, would no doubt be most delighted to have prominent Goan politicians aligned to one or the other brand. Perhaps that could solve the perennial problem of defections. The corporate sponsorship contract might just prove to be more powerful than any political whip or any High Command! Our meritorious and hard-working sportspersons would, however, still be left panting in their pursuit of a decent chance to train themselves well and compete with world-class colleagues in their respective sports. Our sports administrators would still be left participating in meaningless debates about which particular sport should be declared Goa's "official" sport. Even if football does get declared as Goa's official sport, we could still take a cue from the "official" status of Konkani language. Just as a fresh debate seems to be simmering as to which should be the "official" script for the Konkani language, we could have a roaring debate about which should be the "official" ball to be used on the football field. After all, a prominent Goan team had once in the past gone to Calcutta to play a match of the National League but had come back without even entering the stadium, only because the ball proposed to be used was not of a particular brand. Till the next Monday, then, Happy Thinking! [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Harbour Times" (29-08-2005)