To champion a cause

Cricketers, present and former, continue to play on a very nice wicket compared to other sportspeople in India.

And while nobody really resents the earnings of cricketers, the financial rewards for some other personalities in other disciplines is disgraceful.

Recently, the Times of India’s Biju Babu Cyriac touched the hearts of millions of readers when he wrote a story about Geetha Bai, a national level powerlifter who survives on selling polythene bags for a living in Mangalore, a town in southern India.

Geetha’s day kicks off at 5am when she boards a bus to reach the Mangala Stadium where she trains from 6.30am-9am. She then heads to the market half an hour later. She sells bags till 7pm – a job fetches that her Rs80-100 (Dh6-8) per day.

Sport personalities in India doing 9-5 jobs is common, but not for such a meagre return. And while there is no shame in doing an extra job to earn a living, selling bags is not something to be proud of.

Even before recession hit the Indian subcontinent, job opportunities dwindled for sports men and women. Corporate houses no longer believe it is great publicity when employees prosper at state and international level.

For them, productivity in the office counts for more. That is why we find even cricketers in certain cities such as Mumbai struggling to find good jobs.

Geetha explained the problem well. “Except for some help I got from the Mangalore City Corporation, I’ve been on my own. I want to continue powerlifting but don’t know how far I can go on like this. I want to compete in more international meets but there’s no way I can raise the money,” she was quoted as saying.

One wonders how many of her sport’s administrators read the last part of her quote. They should have been scampering to the sports ministry to help her survive. But Indian sport does not only lack performers of the highest calibre. Heart and soul among the people who call the shots is sorely missing too.

Champions cannot expect to achieve maximum performance with a poor diet. Geetha survives on just vegetables. Not because she is vegetarian but because she cannot afford meat, fish and chicken. Luckily her customers sometimes give her with money for a non- vegetarian meal to sustain her 95kg frame.

Geetha and fellow powerlifter Keerthi, who is a post-graduate and serves the Karnataka State Police, recently missed out on the Ekalavya Award from their state government when sports followers believed they deserved the honour.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports do have the machinery to help needy sportspersons, but their unimpressive budget, which by the way, only got revised last year after 14 years, is far too less.

The deplorable state of affairs concerning present and past sportspersons should question the logic of spending crores on a Commonwealth Games when sports in India could get a fillip if the same kind of money is used in building infrastructure and improving the lot of sportsmen and women, who are pleading for better facilities to compete with the best in business.

That the Commonwealth Games has a fresh set of fears in terms of Delhi being ready to host it next year is another matter. India’s sporting czars have a lot of answering to do to sports lovers who have lost hope about a sporting India. Geetha is just another case highlighted by the media, but there are thousands out there who do not have the courage to lash out at insensitive and corrupt officialdom.

Desperation could lead India’s sportspersons to undesired professions. Nisha Shetty, a state-level athlete turned to prostitution because she could not earn a decent living from her sporting endeavours.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India have to be lauded for their efforts to help sportspersons from other fields. But, probably, it is time our cricketers come together and start a foundation which could help deserving toilers.

Sachin Tendulkar does quite a bit of charity work and so do other members of the team. Forming a body like cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar’s “Champs” (Caring, Helping, Assisting, Motivating, Promoting Sportspersons) would mean going one step further.

Inspiration for cricketers is not very far away. The good work by former England great Sir Ian Botham will provide enough of it. The maverick cricketer-turned-commentator does not make a big noise of his charity work, but he has done some great things for society during and after his playing days.

In 1985, he did the first of his 11 charity walks which helped leukaemia patients and now plans another one next year which will mark the 25th anniversary of his first experience. Only recently, he made another trip to tsunami-hit Galle in Sri Lanka to lend a hand in a special project.

Ian Terence Botham has a heart of gold and India needs someone like him to assure their sportspersons a better tomorrow. If not, we will continue to hear and do nothing about cases of sporting poverty.

It is not the time to look too much into the past, but the fact is that Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav, independent India’s first individual Olympic medallist, died a pauper. Wrestler Jadhav won a bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Games and remained India’s only medal-winner until tennis player Leander Paes clinched bronze in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Jadhav got funds to make it to Helsinki with the help of a principal in Kolhapur (a town in Maharashtra state) who mortgaged his house to meet Jadhav’s ticket expenses. His end came in a road accident.

Come on champs, show you care.