Someday, someone somewhere will make the Indian Olympic Association and the government of the day answer why they simply fooled around with sport in this country for decades, replacing honesty of purpose and functional sincerity with bombast, platitudes and the very cheap ploy of playing to the gallery. The question arises because Indian sport is now a vibrant collage of actions here, there and everywhere without India being counted among the world’s bestknown sporting countries.

Cricket continues to be our staple but aggressive marketing on television ~ which is always thinking up shows that can be put on to obviate a blank screen ~ focuses on varied offerings today. Each sport wants its moment in the sun, or seems to say so, having teamed up with the electronic media to make sure it doesn’t grow economically anaemic. Slick telecasting ensures a certain popular appeal and, amused to recall just how lifeless everything looked when Doordarshan monopolised the market, well might there be people parking themselves nightly before the telly to watch sport, even if only to get away from soaps and serials that have only a hollow boom to them.

Players from abroad lend many of these sporting spectales a touch of glamour ~ some badminton players are really good ~ and the familiar takes on a welcome unfamiliar look when, say, an Iranian plays kabaddi. The money they get, from all accounts, is good, given few sports other than cricket, football and hockey was favoured with cash injections in this country till the other day.

But to go back to the question about India staying, in spite of the elaborate arrangements to project a contrarian image, in the wilderness just can’t be kicked into the touchline: shall we ever think of the world’s mainstream Olympic disciplines as areas worth exploring? Leander Paes’ 1994 Atlanta bronze medal in men’s singles tennis happens to be the only major individual medal we have so far come by in the quadrennial showpiece even though athletics, swimming, gymnastics, basketball, football are disciplines we invest time and money in too.

A lot of damage is done when performance doesn’t match hype but that happens everywhere. We shall learn to take it in our stride once it is realised that not all Olympic medals are of the same value. Geese needn’t be looked upon as swans. A gold medal in swimming is way above another in a sport included in the programme simply because the Games are planned to provide a wide canvas. The flip side of it in today’s context also implies that the busybodies scrounge around for each penny they can pick up but that is another big reason why we should aim at mainstream glory. It will take us a lot of time to get there but the effort, made, will be much more worthwhile than looking for softer options.