AFVOA Newletters of Year 2006

Page 8 of 77 Dev And Sunil Gavaskar. Foreign players such as Don Bradman, Keith Miller, Len Hutton, Everton Weekes and the like, were modest gentlemen both on & off the field. In tennis we had other greats including my class-mate from Delhi, Ramanathan Krishnan, who was the epitome of courtesy and graciousness on court. In fact, if the lineman gave a wrong call in his favour, he would walk up to the referee and request him to award the point to his opponent!! 23. Fast forward to any game today. There will be grunts, clenched fists, histrionic jumping at each point scored in tennis, a wicket taken in cricket, or a penalty corner taken, or defeated in hockey, or jeers at the linemen and referee. Also there would be jibes exchanged between players before, during, and after the game. Press conferences are the order of the day when great predictions on the outcome are made before the game by all and sundry. The conference after the game, will end in a whimper, after the predictions go completely awry. Then the blame game will start, on the pitch or court, the fellow players, the captain, the coach, everyone except oneself for the abominable game played. The whole problem stems from the misplaced adulation and the larger than life image projections by the media, financed by big business with their Ad Agencies showering hype on the so called heroes. (Notice how Tamil News channels use the word “Veeran” and “ Veeranganai” for a player. It is anybody’s guess as to what is the “Veerta” displayed the player, unless “ playing with balls” is termed as bravery of the highest order, pun unintended.). The public at large, falls hook line and sinker, for the products through these brand ambassadors!! (a glorified name for dalals). It pays the MNCs as well as local companies to give a halo effect to these players, consisting mostly of myth and very little substance, amplified by the TV and print media. They sign them up for astronomical sums through the Ad Agencies, so that the consumer is forced to cough up for a plain bottle of soft drink, between 30 to 40 times the actual cost. To the lay public, a secret formula is touted for the special flavour and taste. In reality, there is no such sacrosanct formula,( Remember 77, the indigenous Cola? ) the local free groundwater is used, more harmful but cheaper sweeteners as alternative to the costlier sugar are used, and a whole new generation of kids gets hooked on, by projecting themselves as the alter ego of the sportspersons. 24. The sad part of this grim scenario is that instead of these young sportspersons concentrating on their game, these commercial distractions make them short-term wonders, falling by the wayside within a couple of years. These same sponsors will further damage the resurgence of these fallen heroes by latching on to the emerging new finds by obliterating any traces of their old benefactors. The public(other than the faithful Bongs) would soon say “Saurav --- Who?”!l You now can’t find any of the ads of this former cricket captain- a few that may be doing the rounds are those, whose contractual liabilities with the media channels are not yet over!! 25. Recently, to add fuel to fire, the State has joined the bandwagon by showering largesse in the form of awards right from the start. There is no justification for awarding the Padma Shree to a person just embarking on a career. It is not as if the person had won a grand-slam event. A carmaker has also got the person to sponsor just one model of their car, paying out, as I understand, the largest ever amount paid, next only to SRK, who has been with them for a few years now. No wonder the car price was hiked at the earliest opportunity. The person in question, by virtue of having been placed on a high pedestal by the subservient sponsors and the public, turned snooty at another function organized by an earlier sponsor and walked out of a press conference when an inconvenient question was asked!! Unpardonable behaviour for someone just trying to make a mark. She also did not go beyond the first round in the first Grand-slam event of the year and quietly slipped into the home town. Where were those idolatory fans and where were the sponsors? I am not suggesting that the person lacks prowess or grit, but spoiling her with largesse does not augur well for her game, as the focus shifts from