‘Epic’ Shobhaa De: As your article headline reads ‘It’s all in the genes’

‘Rio Olympics’, ‘Rio de Janerio’ were some of the key-words trending in twitter for the past couple of days. But when writer-columnist Shobhaa De contributed her tweet to those trending keywords, she became trending.

And that’s Shobhaa De. She herself is an ‘epic’ and so are her words.

The news from Rio de Janeiro has not been very encouraging for Indians. Barring one exceptional performance by gymnast Dipa Karmakar, India has struggled to produce dominant performances at the Olympics so far. However, diehard fans continue to root for the athletes and some target the few who ridicule the sports personalities.

Writer and columnist Shobhaa De landed herself in a soup for precisely the same reason. “Goal of Team India at the Olympics: Rio jao. Selfies lo. Khaali haat wapas aao. What a waste of money and opportunity,” she tweetedon Monday.

Goal of Team India at the Olympics: Rio jao. Selfies lo. Khaali haat wapas aao. What a waste of money and opportunity.

— Shobhaa De (@DeShobhaa) August 8, 2016

And, yeah without any time lag, noted shooter Abhinav Bindra stepped in “@DeShobhaa that’s a tad unfair. You should be proud of your athletes pursuing human excellence against the whole world.”

@DeShobhaa that’s a tad unfair. You should be proud of your athletes perusing human excellence against the whole world.

— Abhinav Bindra (@Abhinav_Bindra) August 9, 2016

Jwala Gutta and Sommdev were other sportspersons who slapped couple of tweets in reply to Shobhaa De’s tweet. Viren Rasquinha even challenged her to run  on hockey pitch for 60  minutes.

While most of us kept awake late into Sunday night hoping for three unassuming girls to bring us some glory in archery, or did our own version of a somersault after Dipa Karmakar became the first Indian to reach the final of any gymnastics event, Ms De had zero team spirit.

I wonder what it takes to even talk or think like this when the rest of the country has for once united with national pride. Neither am I convinced that this was directed at the officials who accompanied the team and chose to travel business class while sending our athletes in economy.

It is also doubtful that Ms De personally financed any player on the team, or has ever played much of a sport; else, she would have had at least an inkling of how athletes have no semblance of a normal life when they train for the Olympics. But it is easy to give gyaan sitting in air-conditioned rooms far away from wrestling akharas or dilapidated facilities.

Admittedly, it hasn’t been the best start by us but I will continue to wake up in the morning expecting some magic from our sportsmen, many of whom have come from extremely humble backgrounds. Instead what Ms De did was trivialize every sacrifice they and their families have made and pushed our thinking back by years. People like her are a big reason why, for decades, we never had a sporting culture.

An Indian athlete wins in spite of our cricket obsession and despite our system of power-hungry babus and shoddy infrastructure. Ms De’s parochial mindset it seems is only interested in being a part of the good times.

Maybe more than a few feel the same about your writing Ms De! If you have nothing nice to say, sometimes it really is better not to say anything.

Instead of making a mockery of our athletes maybe she should consider how they reached where they have in the first place, how winning isn’t always everything and for us most of them are already winners. Wonder if she knows that Dattu Bhokanal, the 23-year-old rower who qualified for the quarter-finals has a mother back home who is seriously unwell and sinking. Or that the father of the women’s hockey team captain is a cart-puller.

Forget selfies, they should be doing the samba for what they have achieved. Ms De on the other hand should be sticking to what she does best, celebrity air kissing and dissing. Only the frivolous will find it humourous, because when the chips are down and all that you have worked for in the last four years comes to nought, like Jitu Rai, Abhinav Bindra or any of the others in Rio, then it is our duty to remind our sportsmen and women that they are still champions and will always be.