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Today I let out a loud cheer as soon as I read the news of India defeating Syria 1-0 in the Nehru cup Football tournament. My Brasilian colleague who was sitting beside me asked me what happened.....When i told him about India's victory, he remarked that the floor we were in Brasil Telecom, a team made out of them would beat Syria anyday...Ofcourse I told him that very likely the children of the very same people could beat India any day....
But in a sports starved country like ours, to hear news such as these fills you with pride and excitement... very few better feelings than this, if any at all....
In a country like ours where more often than not you read in the papers only about caste/religion/region based hate crimes and discrimination...I trully trully believe that team sports such as these give us Indians a sense of belonging to one another and feel joy for the same pure reason...of being an Indian..nothing more..nothing less..
Man...can you believe how those 10,000 people must have felt when the Indian team led by Bhutia did a lap of honour flying our tricolor.......what those players must have felt seeing so much of support for them after all the painstaking mediocrity they have to suffer at the hands of incompetent admininstrators more often than not...
Not to forget the media which cannot help but dedicate 2-3 complete pages for Cricket..agreed Cricket is a popular sport...but you could atleast give all other sports and sportspersons encouragement from your side in their lonely struggle to play and win for our Country... ( i'm pretty sure not many would know who Sridhar is...our country's Badminton player)...I'm really sorry...but in the absence of any adequate support for these guys.. it becomes imperative that media keeps the administrators of these sports accountable to the people..and make sure our true stars of the country are inspired enough to give the best ...for the country....
Anyways....i can't but take a dig at media everytime i think of our Sports scenario...I just hope the win in Nehru Cup would have guaranteed a place in the First page of Times of India...Though i did read more than a few articles regarding the win....good good..thanks to u then..
So...coming back to the good news.....could this win lead to some winds of change for football players and football lovers in our country....specially with the pre - World Cup qualifiers coming up as well...
Just read a news that NBA players will make a tour of India as well to promote Basketball in our country....the overtly optimist that i would like to believe I'm ...i cannot but feel that indeed slowly and steadily India and her Indians will ramble on and start playing real games other then those we are really famous for.. (caste,corruption anyone!!!!)
I may or may not ever come to Brasil again...but when you are in the Mecca of football..it can only be a dream of yours that few years down the line...when an Indian visits Brasil ....one of the best discussions would be about how the two teams fared in the World Cup...and to stretch it a little at this point...how we beat them.. :))))
Chak De India...and thank you once again....!!!!
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