Chak de?

In the last eighty years we have never failed to qualify for the Olympics. National shame. India trounced by Great Britain. Screaming headlines are shocking us out of stupor. We are, however, a nation so deep in slumber we refuse to be woken up by cacophonous, ear-splitting clamour right in front of our ears.

The day before that the resounding victory of the same team against Chile went totally unnoticed. It is true that in life, most good things are like being a good goal-keeper. The ones you save are a part of your job profile. No matter how good the saves, it is the single miss that will make all the difference.

What will it take to wake us up as a nation?

A Chake De comes along and makes us all want to rise and cheer. Perpetual underdogs who rise and win... What happens to the losing players? Who do we 'target'? And what do we as a nation feel, and do? We have always made the mistake of taking the wood for the forest and not tackling the root problems ailing the systems.

We look for scapegoats. We want to fix the blame and feel we have fixed the problem. We hang a few and assume the lot to follow will be different. And then, we expose the fresh crop to the same root-rot that killed the previous crop.

Sports shows it very clearly. The same malady is slowly, but surely, killing our schools and educational institutions, our government and our judiciary and enforcement agencies... everywhere that we turn, we find termite laden walls ready to fall- bravely holding up against storms... but for how long?

Taking moral responsibility for a debacle like the Santiago disaster and resigning is all very noble- but does it solve any problems? Is anyone really listening? And what of the KPSs who donot resign? They will rule with an iron fist and smash every skull that rises against that fist. Iron fists and the rest of the weaponry are good to tackle terrorists but these cannot be used to terrorise sportsmen! Anyway- we do not have a track record to be proud of when handling terrorism.

What make some office bearers hang their heads in shame and some hold them so high that they refuse to see the ground reality?

Long ago in class XI, I had read a poem- We, the people... it talked of how "we, the people fight wars, succumb, spill blood, win or lose... and... forget." It also mentioned that these maladies can be cured only when We the people LEARN TO REMEMBER!

We, Indians, have a very short memory. We see a movie like Chak De- cheer the winning team, shed a few tears when they lose and- we forget.

It is time for us to remember... to remember to remember...