At last. India wins an individual gold medal. After 112 years.
Screw ace-swimmer Michael Phelps and his quest for 8 individual gold medals.
Woh kya jaane ek gold ki keemat.
Humse puchho yaar.
And in this golden moment, when we as a nation step from an old age to the new, it is time to remember those who made this achievement possible and express our sincerest gratitude to them.
So come join me in thanking the following ——
[Unrelated to this post but congratulations to Abhinav Bindra for getting us a GOLD. At last.]
Many years ago, on the walls of Sealdah railway station, I saw the following poster put up by a Bangali revivalist organization called “Amra Bangali”.( We are Bengalis) It said:
Bangali gorje otho ! (Translation: Bangalis Rise up and Roar !)
Below the bold red font, someone, with a delicious sense of irony, had scribbled in miniscule letters, with the size no doubt reflecting the feebleness of the Bengali tiger:
Haloom
Mahendra Singh Dhoni wins the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna becoming the second cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar to win the highest civilian award for sportsmen.
Now I can anticipate the reaction from the perennially grumpy traditionalists. They are first going to pull down the whole concept of government-granted awards by pointing out that sarkari samman is determined more by politics, pull and regional considerations rather than by merit, conveniently forgetting contrary examples to their thesis—like Saif Ali Khan winning a National Award for the path-breaking “Hum Tum”.
Then they will go after Dhoni’s most-average Test record and wonder how that translates to a cricketing achievement award. They will pooh-pooh Dhoni’s one day series win in Australia and T20 victory as credentials that do not merit such a high honor, especially in the light of the fact that Kapil Dev, who won the One day World Cup and did some other things of note (like 400 odd Test wickets), was passed over.
They will ask how in purely cricketing terms, as of 2008, has Dhoni achieved more than Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Anil Kumble, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.
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