Do you remember Abhinav Bindra being awarded rupees ten lakhs by our Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi? Abhinav Bindra possesses a lavish indoor range in the backyard of home, which he uses for shooting practice. He has graduated from the University of Colorado in the United States, with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. Apart from being a professional shooter, he holds the position of the CEO of Abhinav Futuristics - the sole distributor of Walther arms in India. He is also the Director of Abhinav Hotels & Inns Pvt. Ltd. He has sponsorship tie-ups with some of the renowned brands including Samsung and Sahara Group.
I really doubt if rupees ten lakh was worth anything for Bindra. I also do not know whether he actually got the money from Mr. Gogoi or not. But Mr. Gogoi got publicity worth more than ten lakh rupees. It is, of course, a different issue that Mr. Gogoi hesitated to provide even one lakh rupees to WWF Musle Mania Champion Mahadeb Deka for his passage to the competition.
More recently, the cricket World Cup winners of India have been showered with gifts and awards. Bord of Control for Cricket in Idia (BCCI), the club that employs these players, has announced rupees one crore each to the players, Himachal Government has offered a plot of land to both Dhoni and Tendulakar at Chandigarh, Kartantak Government has offered house in Bangalore to all the players from the state in the winning team and last but not the least, the Railway Ministry has given all the players in the winning team a life-time first class AC travel pass in Indian Railways. So what if the players actually never travel by train and prefer to travel by aeroplanes (preferably chartered)?
The Telegraph today went into elaborate description on how the Railway Minister got the congratulatory letter drafted and typed soon after Indian(?)team's historic win, signed the letter next day early morning and then made sure that the letter reaches Mahendra Singh Dhoni at his hotel in Mumbai by 11 A.M. If only she was equally anxious for passengers wishing to reach their destination on time!
These tamasha of rewarding and awarding the achievers indeed is a very cheap means to bask in reflected glory (pan intended). But, it seems nobody minds as long as it is glorious.
interesting details :)
ReplyDeleteI think we should salute Success....its only easy to criticize..then earn glory!!! Money is nothing but a gesture for what Sportstars give back to the Nation. Nothing UNITED INDIA more than the day they were CHAMPIONS. The last time India stood United was 26/11...but tears filled with the loss of Hundreds. The men in Blue got us UNITED again...but with tears of JOY.
ReplyDeleteWith all the due respect, I would like to differ from the way Ms. Kalita thinks.
ReplyDeleteIf, this is the price we have to pay to make the nation stand united and happy for just one day (the facts are all in front of us), how can we hope for a prolonged period of happiness and national integrity. Obviously we can't afford it.
Alternately, we can also simply try to love our country and stand in unity..... just like that, no strings attached. Believe me, it works sometime. It actually works for many people and many other countries and it always did work almost for everybody in the past, in the pre-cricket era).
Many countries, where people are not fortunate enough to know what cricket is, are left with no other choices but to learn to love their country without it being threatened by enemies in uniform who are armed with dangerous weapons like bat, ball, stamps etc..............
Cricket, in fact, reminds me of opium.
In the pre-independent era, how the Britishers actually kept the tea garden workers in Assam, dormant and unaware by distributing free opium among them. In my wildest thought ... sometimes I doubt, as if the Indian Government and a section of people in power, with money.....are using cricket in a similar manner. The more craze, I see among the people, the stronger my doubt grows.