There is something seductive about being part of thousands of vocal and passionate enthusiasts goading their team to put up an inspiring display on the field of sports. In India we are not new to this experience, except that this happens mostly in cricket. The Mexican wave, lung-puncturing screams that resound in unison with ‘India, India’ chants happen far too frequently for anyone to express surprise at its occurrence.
Yet when this happened on Friday at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, it did seem unusual and very welcome. Though the stadium may have been only half full, a crowd of nearly 25,000, mostly schoolchildren, had enough energy and enthusiasm to create a rumbustious ambiance that was so infectious that even grey-haired adults got sucked into it.
This was the first time India’s national anthem was played in a football World Cup, someone commented, underlying the significance of the country's first match in the U-17 World Cup. Thanks to, FIFA, the World Cup is being staged in a country that otherwise would not even have dreamt of qualifying for it.
Why it is so became obvious as India struggled to stay afloat against wave after wave of attacks from the US. The crowd, not unaware of India’s limitations, may still have have got dejected, which got reflected in brief periods of silence, but their support for the home team never dimmed.
The Indian team floundered, but to their credit, fought gamely and never appeared lacking in spirits. But that this was a mismatch became evident when the players walked on to the field. It came as some sort of a shock to see the puny Indians after having seen the tall and muscular Ghana and Colombia teams put up a dazzling display of skill and stamina in the opening match. The US team, too, towered over the Indian players. Someone in the crowd, so taken aback by what she saw, remarked, “Are the Indians under-age or are the other teams fielding overage players?” The response swift, “Indians have small bone-structure. It is impossible to fudge age and get away with it at this level.”
Majority of the players in the team come from underprivileged backgrounds, half of them from North-eastern states and they have been selected on pure merit. Their skill was on display, none underlining it better than Komal Thatal’s speedy runs that many times brought the house down.
The more important question is that would hosting of an event of this magnitude lead to a soccer renaissance in India? It sure will once again lead to a churning of thoughts where everyone will raise uncomfortable questions and blame an insensitive system for India lagging so far behind other countries.
We all realise, as this team’s composition too indicates, that talent and the appetite and passion for hard work is higher among the lower-middle classes, like anywhere else in the world. We do not provide these kids the support system that would train them to become world class is a fault, for which we all are to be blamed.
Let us take the arrangements made for this match as an example of what ails us as a society that is discriminatory by conditioning. There were reports that the schoolchildren ferried to the ground were not provided drinking water. Even for the free dinner provided to them, officials haggled over the cost per food packet to be reduced from `89 to `75. The choice finally boiled down to whether to cut out a samosa or a bread pakora from each packet.
The enclosure I was seated in had no such problems. Not only was there plenty of chilled bottled water, but also a good buffet spread twice in the evening, free of course. With such misplaced priorities, does one expect anything to change in this country?