As a child coming from a background of sporting family, sport was always encouraged at home. Sports was almost a way of life, the holidays meant breakfast …sports …lunch…sports.. tea….sports and by the end it was too tiring for us young souls to even have dinner, as if it pleased our mothers. And you thought this was confined to the holidays?? No! The school used to be less taxing than what it is now, home work used to finish by 6 and ..then sports again.
You will think what this guy is jabbering about sports, what sport man? You name it maan cricket, football, hockey, basketball, Tennis and of course how can I forget the family heirloom ‘ Table Tennis’. By the way there wasn’t cable TV back then. My father being a champion TT player and having tremendous interest in cricket, tennis ( including playing at club level) and all other sports ( the others were however limited to being a keen reader and watcher of the game) helped. My mom though not a huge sports fan had brothers ( Uncles of mine) who played cricket at the highest level in Mumbai. The fact of the matter is Sport and its intricacies have had a tremendous impact on me as a person.
I have always felt that Sport doesn’t get the kind of recognition at home /society in India then what is in other countries. At home parents in the end would go for the cliché “ do you hope to make a living by playing?” India has always been a land of scholars and people with emphasis on the power of the mind no doubt; and has helped create India into a knowledge superpower. But aren’t we forgetting that even our greatest epics had Ram or Krishna playing sport to enhance their battle skills.
Sport for that matter I believe has the spices that build a character in a person. Only a sportsman would understand what it feels like to lose…and then learn to still fight the next day or in the next game. The ability to pick up the pieces , analyze the mistakes and come out fighting again takes you way ahead in life. Sport you also have to understand is less about ability and more about hard work, a philosophy that stood me in good stead during my C.A course. It is not talent that makes Sachin Tendulkar great but the hard work that has been put in all those years and even today makes those instincts work when you have a Shoaib Akthar missile coming at you. The embodiment of a good sports man is to focus on certain areas that don’t come naturally to him and work hard enough on those points so that they become a part of his instincts. Wouldn’t a similar philosophy apply to improve certain habits that our young people show up with; like being impulsive, careless, stubborn, disrespectful etc? I believe it certainly would.
Sports of any type has a basic hierarchy in an individuals performance, oneself, the teacher, the parents, the supporters and the critics or opponents/ and their support. The own decides first hand what you want to do and the teacher (Coach) polishes/scrapes/ cuts and delivers an efficient product. The parents and supporters generally form the backbone which keeps a sportsman going. The critics and opponents form the rest of the society which always tries to pull you down. All these characteristics are part and parcel of our day to day lives, whether you are doing business, are self employed or in employment. Such a social structure exists around all of us and thus you see; a sportsman or a person with a background in some sport has a preview to life very early and I believe such a person is much better prepared than most.
Sport also has two critical characteristics; one being the requirement of not giving up when it hurts the most and another aspect of any sport is it builds the character to perform when it counts the most or when the expectations are sky high and a sportsman has to deliver. Both these characteristics are the secret to the most successful sportsmen, and the same characteristics also spell the secret of success in Business, Profession and in Life….
Any sport, whether indoor or outdoor is basically an action point. ‘ The Walk the Talk’ principle. Herein you have to perform, since a sportsman is not known by how talented he could have been, how beautifully he or she played the game, but only how he or she performed , how many Championships you have won or how grittily you played the game. A sportsman I believe will never make a good politician as in any Sport and I believe , in the character of any person ‘Actions Speak louder than Words’.
All sports the world over have brought to the fore inspiring tales of courage , Grit, Determination and a spirit called sportsmanship time and again. I believe the monumental effort involved in getting a single Gold medal at the Olympics, or Winning the World Cup, or making a World Record is the greatest example that a young generation can have. The Stories of Jesse Owens, Wilma Rudolph, Greg Louganis, Tiger Woods, John McEnroe, Sunny Gavaskar, Don Bradman, Vishwanathan Anand, Sachin Tendulkar, Micheal Jordan, Muhammad Ali etc are truly awe inspiring and should be passed from generation to generation, Parents to Children, Brothers to Sisters, Friends to Friends. All of these people , their tales of courage as told to me by my Father right from child hood, Some which I have myself seen and observed, have had a tremendous impact in the way I work, I talk, what I believe in, how I lead a team of people, how I react to situations , how I handle pressure, etc and the overall perspective of my life.
Finally another factor that puts sport on the my pedestal of spirituality is the fact that sport knows no bar, no age, no creed, no religion, no discrimination, only talent and ability; and the fact that to perform at the highest level you work in a sub consciousness mind that is called the ‘zone’ where nothing else matters but yourself and the game. I think that is something that takes you closer to our own supreme inner being which some people refer to as ’GOD’. A complete human being, with the right in-built spirit, right attitude, right values is just a manifestation, or a by product of SPORT.
( The writer is a Sportsman , a Chartered Accountant & Visiting Faculty at Damodar College of Commerce & Economics, Margao-Goa.)
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Diluting Excellence
As a young professional upon qualifying extremely competitive exams you take your few steps in this competitive world; then changes take place beyond your control, which bring unhealthy performance in terms of competition and values. The people in power sometimes instead of creating a conducive atmosphere for growth; bring about ambiguous criteria creating doubts in the minds of these young and bright futures of the country.
Nearly 50 per cent reservation in government –aided institutions, including IIMs and IITs, from next academic year is a foregone conclusion. Much has been said about the undesirability or otherwise of such a move in higher education. Few of these views take a look at the issue from the perspective of teachers in these institutions. Among the most important reasons why, despite poor salary, high-calibre faculty is attracted to teach in IITs, IIMs and IIS, I think is the opportunity to teach the very best students. Teaching toppers is a pleasure one can appreciate only if one has experienced it first hand. You take that away and you take away a very important reason for the very best to teach in these institutions.
In higher institutions, typically, the pace of learning accelerates quickly. The level of teaching is way beyond regular schooling, HSSC or Graduate courses. In any class representing a mix of merit and reservation students, one will be presented with the challenge of where to pitch a lecture. If you cater to the merit group, the reserved group shall be unable to keep up. If you slow down to the reserved group’s level, you risk resentment from the merit group. Moreover, it also takes away the challenge that attracts one to teach in these institutions – the adrenalin that flows from matching one’s wits with the best. Some of these problems I guess are still present with 22.5 per cent reservation for SCs and STs. But as the number represents only about one-fifth of the total, the system should cope with some tutorials and extra handholding.
But the situation is set to change for the worse. With nearly 50 per cent reservation, any given class in these institutions will comprise two distinct intellectual levels. Willy-nilly the institutions may be driven to running separate sections for reserved and merit students, so that teaching could be accomplished at a level commensurate with the intellect of students. This is bound to see friction among the faculty as to who will teach in which section. I am not even talking about the friction levels that shall prevail among the students.
As the best faculty may not want to teach the non-merit category, newer or younger faculty will be pressed to teach reserved students, impairing the ability of these institutions to attract high-calibre faculty, resulting in eventual dilution of brand equity.
A thought comes to mind though?
Why should a responsible and committed faculty be averse to teaching students from socially challenged communities? I have no doubt that most faculty would like to do their bit for social development, provided the students admitted are genuinely needy. But from a little what I have seen during my student days as well as what I understand from reports coming through; most students from SC /ST category in these institutions are children of senior government officials who are hardly socially handicapped. I understand that it also include students who had got into IITs on reservation, then into some public sector corporation on reservation, got promoted on reservation and then came into an IIM(can be vice versa also) on reservation! You can hardly hold it against a teacher if he does not want to teach such candidates in he name of social development.
Perhaps the government would do well to consider the following exclusions from the ambit of reservation: Children of central or state government officials, if they had enjoyed reservation benefit in their education or jobs; offspring of MPs, MLAs and senior office-bearers of political parties up to district level; children of taxpayers or owners of a house, car, telephone or credit card on the premise that if these criteria are good enough the file tax returns, they do not need reservation benefit; and anyone seeking reservation benefit for a second time (say at IIM, having got a similar benefit at an IIT), unless he has worked in a rural area after the first degree for at least three years.
If the government favours empowerment of women, can the children of all widows under a certain income level be included for reservation? Can government revisit its language policy in state-run schools and introduce English at least as a compulsory second language to improve the employment chances of students from reserved category in a globalised world?
Change is welcome; provided it is for the better but in our country change brought about by any from of compulsory regulation or enforcement has always produced a result to the contrary!
(Writer is a visting
(Inspired by V.Ragunathan Analysis on Teaching in a Tainted Environment )
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