When Abhinav Bindra was shooting at the Olympic Shooting Centre to fetch India its first medal at the Games, Shobhaa De, along with millions of Indians was watching the Games and flipping between television channels and Twitter.
Minutes before India's ace shooter narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in the finals, the popular columnist sitting 15,000 km across the world tweeted the following:
India was shocked at your scoffing, head shaking, derisive snorting, tongue-clicking attitude. What good can your tweet do to any athlete? Forget athletes. To any Indian?
With his attitude, we make the odds against our sons and daughters. You are not responsible. Every single one of us is at fault. The people at home, the people in office, you, me, every single Indian and of course Shobhaa De who says, "We’re no good. We are like this only."
The efforts of our athletes are being demeaned by Indians like you who are dissatisfied by anything less than a medal, and you people go and demean our country, and everything related to it further.
Making ourselves prisoners of our own identity. What do we gain out of it? You and all other armchair activists need to realise that as long as we keep fueling this negative self-image of ourselves, there is no way we can escape it.
The players only become what they believe themselves capable and worthy of. But when phrases like 'waste of money and opportunity' and narrow-minded thoughts are put on social media, you need to go out and stare at the night sky to appreciate the vastness of the universe and your insignificance.
Times are indeed changing as far as the sporting scenario is concerned. London provided our best medal total and we have sent our largest ever delegation of athletes to Rio which includes real medal prospects.
Success breeds success, if any heroes do emerge from Rio, there will be hundreds of millions of youngsters back in India ready to try and emulate them. That is what matters because the most significant sporting extravaganza known to mankind is a dream pantheon for athletes; surreal in magnitude, indomitable in spirit.
I, being a writer, find it hilarious to tell another writer this. Be the change you want to see in the world. But then, instead of making something happen in your own small way, you are content to sit back and tweet about 'wasted opportunity'.
For you and all those armchair activists, the Olympics might be severely diminished both in significance and importance. For you, the Olympics might be another sporting headline in the newspaper. But that is not the case for people like us. So stop pointing out whatever is wrong with the country and stop demotivating the athletes who have trained four years to reach where they are now.
If a 4th place finish is not good enough for you, then I don't know what is. I feel nothing will be unless you look at things in a positive light and try to move forward instead of picking at scabs.
I'll be happy if you ensure the players get proper psychological training from now till Tokyo 2020 so that they can go and "not click selfies". Also, you can help them garner some much-needed 'experience', and build up their temperament and confidence.
My dad always said the essence and importance of the Olympics takes a humble beating in the hands of prejudiced sporting fraternity in India.You proved him right again. It's high time you do something.
Don't sit back and enjoy the 'perks' of your tweet.
