A Tribute to the Legend

Very rarely has a Biopic been inspiring enough for me to blog about it. Tigmanshu Dhulia's Paan Singh Tomar is a laudable act in every aspect and watching it was a mesmerizing and mollifying experience. Paan Singh Tomar, a gregarious affable tall man with a hard angular face is delineated as a diligent Army man whose taking up sports just to meet his dietary needs was as amusing as his sending his children for a lemon toffee to catch up with his wife. Even more hilarious was his attitude after being abused by his coach in a racing event. Nevertheless once a phlegmatic serving Subedar in the Indian Army for Roorkee regiment and seven times steeple chase winner at the national games, he turned a maverick to bring havoc in the Chambal Valley. His national steeplechase record stood as tall as his stature, for more than two decades only to be broken by countryman Gopal Saini in 1981. His 2000 strides for a 3000 meters steeplechase race is still a benchmark for Indian Athletes. Tigmanshu Dhulia deserves credit for raising a question as to whether it's worth being a patriot, more importantly so since Paan Singh chose to pick up a gun over a candle or a pen. He defied the system which more often than not goes Gandhian way to approach a problem related to political system's flaw. Why does the political system disown its patriots who were once willing to pour in every bit of their sweat for the nation's pride. Why can't the system forestall such events from happening. Having done a bit of research about Paan Singh, I still believe he was more of a patriot than a decoit, he got pushed into the latter role after falling a victim to the corrupted system. The biopic is a classic delineation as to how society mistreats its heroes, In one of the scenes Paan Singh is apparently asked to put on the spikes just before the race in Asian Games, he loses the race just because he was not accustomed to running with spikes on. Another scene shows how medals won for the country fail to move a corrupt police officer to perform his duty pushing Paan Singh towards fighting fire with fire. It's indeed sad but true that several Atheletes have gone into bolivian begging for recognition, let us hope this falls into deaf ears of management committee which couldn't even offer cab fares and couldn't clear hotel bills for our women Kabbaddi world cup winning Team this year. Earlier last year some of the sportswomen even committed to having banned drugs to boost their athletic performance claiming they were subjected to the act by their very own coaches; such incidents can neither be condoned nor forgiven. This goes to show how sorry state state of affairs our sports management is in a country so obsessed with Cricket. Playing for the nation is a matter of pride and one would always cherish this moment, high time we stop mistreatment of our patriots. We must draw a fine line between politics, money and sports, unless there is a transparency, the future of Indian sports would continue to look bleak and precarious.