After waking up from my afternoon nap, I open up my phone and see various posts on my Facebook News Feed saying "PV Sindhu playing Carolina Marin LIVE in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games - follow the updates here". I think to myself: "Wow, what a relief! Woke up RIGHT in time to watch the Badminton final. Would have kicked myself hard if I missed that". To give you a little bit of background, I am a 20-something Swiss Indian, i.e. a guy of Indian origin having been born fully raised and educated in Geneva.
Having had parents who have always been diehard fans of cricket, I have been the typical cricket addict, despite living in a region obviously dominated by football fanatics. I also occasionally follow tennis, for obvious Federer reasons.
Coming back to today, here I was trying to find a channel which is showing the Badminton final. I have the UK satellite transmission at home, so I first tried on the BBC channels. No luck, they were showing equestrian. Then I switched to the local Swiss TV channels, and I had no luck there either, as they were showing the same equestrian event.
I finally open up my laptop and head to the same Swiss broadcaster's official website, where they stream all the major events for free. Bingo! The match was looking great, as Sindhu was winning the first set, and my eyes were glued to the laptop screen.
As the match went along, I felt more and more involved, not moving an inch from my seat. Every now and then, I would go to my Twitter feed on my phone, and see what everyone is saying about the match. I also contributed there with some of my lame jokes. But as we went deeper into the game, I started having numerous thoughts.
A lot of realizations and questions, which on one hand, made me feel bad about my own approach towards sports, and on the other hand made me feel so proud of what I was witnessing from the fans. What reassured me was that I was obviously not the only one to have this kind of reactions.
A lot of Indian celebrities and well-known figures on social media were able to raise the same points in their own way. Here are some examples of that:
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Me: "It is so incredible to see all this support on Facebook and Twitter, for something other than cricket!"
Richa Chadha’s tweet:
Me: "Oh my God... have never felt so many emotions during a game! Not even for a cricket match! I don't think my heart will survive this game!"
Rohan Joshi’s tweet:
Me: "How is this still not a thing in India? Badminton is such a fun game to follow! And the fans even seem to be engrossed in it!"
Tanmay Bhat’s tweet:
Sorabh Pant’s tweet:
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I am usually a very sore loser, when the team or player I favour ends up on the losing side. But after PV Sindhu was defeated by Carolina Marin, the feeling was very different this time. She lost the Gold, and won the Silver, but this was way beyond all of that for me. She was able to unite a whole nation to follow a sport which was not cricket, and that for me is an achievement in itself.
When I look back at how I used to treat the Olympic Games, it somehow makes me realize that maybe it wasn't entirely my fault. As a child, I used to think to myself "Who are all these athletes? I barely know these names. Why should I even follow this event?” As a teenager, I still had a similar approach to this, but then occasionally watched some events whenever the games involved the likes of Roger Federer, Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps.
As I entered adulthood, I was still not too much into the Olympic Games, but at least I started feeling some pride when I see headlines of either Switzerland or India winning some medals, and I slowly started recognizing various names thanks to the various news channels and their reporting.
Jump forward to the present day, with the presence of social media and the Internet, it has made it much more easier for someone like me to sit in Geneva, and feel so engrossed and involved in the happenings. Sportskeeda itself has done a highly commendable job on this front: allowing total novices like me get constant updates of what is happening in Rio 2016.
I am not asking for India to stop being a cricket-crazy nation. I still am very much a cricket addict before anything, and I wouldn't change it for anything. But let us promote the other sports in a better way, and start showing an equal amount of support to the sportspeople who represent our country in such a massive global tournament.
Let us make someone like PV Sindhu as big a name as Virat Kohli. With better infrastructure for the players and athletes, with good media coverage, and with better treatment from the fans, who should continue to give them such support, it could surely change the situation of sports in India.
On a lighter note, as a Swiss Indian, this gives me two countries to support, which means extra work for me as a fan. But that also means double the passion and excitement from my end, so I guess it’s all good in the end. At least you Indian fans have only one country to support... so do it well and continue to show your support!
Jai Hind!
