What a day to have your birthday on, young lad! After steering India to a stellar 8-1 win over France yesterday and making those Olympic rings tattooed on your arms proud, have a blast today. Very well done, you! Happy happy birthday to you! Hope you kick ass at the World Series as well!
I am so so happy and so so proud of the Men’s National Hockey tonight. Such a young team, inexperienced at that, and what a phenomenal performance! For those of you who are clueless about what I am writing, India defeated France by 8-1 to secure a place at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games! YAY!!
The 30th Olympic Games, and Olympics #19 for the Indian Hockey Team who have won the Olympic gold 8 times in the past. What a feeling to be redeemed. This is the same team that failed to qualify for the Olympics in the first time of Olympic History in 2008. And they’ve achieved their dream tonight and they’ve made supporters of the national game proud!
Coming from such humble backgrounds and making it to the top with little endorsements and money, they’ve shown that passion and dedication can make everything possible. Credit must also go to our new coach Michael Nobbs, who virtually turned this team around. His strict coaching methods and good use of the players and their abilities have given this team a brand new face. This team is now raring to go and face the competition at the Olympics this July.
One more special mention for our penalty corner specialist, the master of the drag flick, Sandeep Singh. Few would believe that this is the man who was seriously hurt in a freak shooting incident 6 years ago, just days before the Indian team left for the Hockey World Cup in 2006. He’s risen from the ashes like a phoenix and has stamped his mark in every match that he has played. Top-scoring in the tournament with 15 goals, Sandeep’s time has come, and he’s peaking at the ideal time for India.
All in all, it’s been a tremendously satisfying process to watch the Indians rout all the competition in their way and make it to the glorious position of the winners of the Olympic Qualifiers tournament. I know, things will only get better! 🙂
Photo shots :
Such a pity that it had to end like this. The master’s last match at the Sydney Cricket Ground – one of his most successful hunting grounds ever. It’s sad that team India lost today’s match to Australia. Some things are not meant to end on a good note, I guess.
Some moments from the match :
So tonight and the loss to South Africa in the finals of the Olympic Qualifier Finals means that the Indian Women’s Hockey team has failed to qualify for the London Olympics. This means that the team has to wait for 4 more years to try and qualify for the next Olympic games.
But here’s the real deal – who cares?
It makes me so mad. It makes me so angry. It makes me want to hit my head against the wall when there is such a step-motherly treatment for the so-called national game of my country. And it makes me sad to see the state of the team, the state of the players, their well-trained, muscular opponents outclassing them even when our team clearly has ample more skills and talent.
It makes me mad when a male laughs and asks mockingly, ‘Is there a women’s team? Oh I seriously didn’t know’ . I feel like pointing them towards the amazing female players that our women’s team has and the stupendous effort they’ve made to reach the finals of this qualifying tournament. If only people would care enough to pick up and actually read the newspaper that is delivered to their home everyday. It makes me sad when people have such low expectations from the women team and demand the opposite from the male team. Why? Why the difference in perception? Since when has it become fashionable to bring down and mock female participation in sports? Do women play only so that male spectators can come to jeer and ogle? Do they? Do they?
It breaks my heart when virtually no friend of mine follows this glorious sport. The sport that has won India 8 Olympic golds. It makes me sad that people would actually watch a TV premier of a movie and not the Olympic Qualifier finals for their national women’s team. It makes me so so sad. It makes me so angry.
But as I said, who cares?
The team will slog on for the coming 4 years and try to make it to the Olympics, try to better their ranking. But will anything change? Will the perception change? That is why our team desperately needed the win tonight – to shut up a lot of people and show them how the game is played. To show them that women don’t play with any less passion or dedication when compared to men. To show that we have an equal stake. Yes we do.
Do you care?
Today, India celebrates one full year since it’s last reported case of Polio. India is one of the PAIN countries, the only remaining countries where Polio is still an endemic disease. PAIN consists of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria. Just years ago, this health program seemed stalled but it is to the credit of the government which has been promoting Polio vaccination on a big scale to make eradication possible.
India is closer to Polio eradication than it was ever before. And it all thanks to the medical administrators and the medical officers who have shown immense dedication and sincerity towards this task. And also worthy of a mention are Rotary International, WHO and the Gates Foundation.
A killer disease, Polio causes paralysis hours after contraction of the virus. If the efforts continue on the same scale, very soon, we shall bid good-bye to this horrible disease and get one step closer to making Indian kids healthy.
A strange thing happened yesterday. Strange to the core. The ‘I cannot believe it’ strange.
I was driving to some place and cursed my luck for having to stop at one of the busiest squares on my route. A signal turned green and cars from my left zoomed past to my right. Or so I thought. I sighed. I looked at the signal right in front of me. It was out of order, but the other signals must be fine, I thought. That’s why such an orderly transition.
I refused to give it more thought and sank back into my chair as I saw the next lane cars move. After a while, I got impatient. This was taking too long. I looked around at the next signal. It was out of order as well. Fantastic, I thought. This meant that a policeman was controlling the traffic. I craned my neck to see a policeman somewhere but couldn’t. To my surprise, the next lane cars started moving. I wondered who was controlling the traffic.
And then I looked closely. All the traffic signals at the junction were out of order. There was no policeman. But no body realized that there was no one to contro the traffic. To my utter surprise, the traffic was following the same pattern as it would when the signals were on! Hah! This was something absolutely new to me. People BEHAVING themselves. I could not believe it.
As my lane cleared and I revved up the engine, I realised. They all thought their signal was out of order but they did not know that the other signals were out of order too. Had they looked? I don’t know. It was a unique situation. I could draw an instant parallel.
Why do we behave ourself? We do that because our red lights are always on. And sometimes when they’re off, we behave because we know other people have their lights on. And sometimes we realize, there are no red lights. That’s when we have chaos.
It was the same me, a year ago. It was the same me, who was thinking about an admission to a b-grade MBA college because things were so bad and it is the same me today who tried her best to improve things and kind of succeeded. 2011 was nothing short of a nightmare. CAT had been a total bouncer. With an abysmal score in quantitative aptitude and a horrible 80%ile overall, the doors to all MBA colleges were closed for me.
Cut to May 2011, when all the exams were done with, and the saving grace was a 97%ile in the state MBA exam, the MH-CET. I was about to take admission to a certain college for the only reason that I had no choice. But thanks to my parents who encouraged me to give it one more try and my utter luck for finding that one good teacher who makes the difference, I decided to risk it all and give CAT another try.
5 months of dedicated preparation, a lot of debacles and a lot of instances of banging my head on the wall because of maths, a lot of bitter-sweet moments later, the decision justified itself. This year, I have a 95.70%ile in my CAT. And though it was Maths that let me down again (a 90.71%ile in quantitative aptitude), I am thrilled and proud to share that I have 3 calls from some very good colleges and have two more college exams to appear for.
2011 has taught me how to learn, how to unlearn. But most importantly, 2011 taught me to strive hard for what matters. Because at the end of the day , there should not be any regrets. There should not be any ‘what-ifs’. Give it your all. Everything else shall follow.
Life's Like That 