mugu wrote:
Can you tell me please, what prompts you to say Bobby has been competing all these years (she is 30-plus) ONLY TO GET AWARDS?
Well I wasn't talking about Bobby. I was referring to the topic of the discussion which was are awards the ultimate goal of an athlete in general.
The problem with awards is that are given out on what others think of your performance. This is often highly subjective (and often also biased). Unless an athlete was totally dominant in a certain year, the choice for athlete of the year is never a landslide victory.
Are award the ultimate goal of an athelte?
At least to me not, really not. But award will motivate athletes as after all atheltes are just human beings. I like to be awarded, I like to be arjuna awardee, but still I know it never makes any difference in my life.
Then the real question is invading,what about all these fuss in the name of arjuna award?
Answer: After couple of years, there may be an occassion. I am introducing to some one as a former athelte. He might not be a malayalee, but certainly a sports loving Indian. He will ask me three things; 1. Did you participate Olympics? 2. Did you win Asian games medal? 3. Did you win arjuna award?
quite, naturally I loved to be recognised asn an arjuna awardee as it is the basic recognation in Indian sports, though it was never my goal in life.
My statement and retirement from sports was not just from a frustration. I deliberately wanted to give a shock treatment to our systom. I tried the same things many times in mylife. i don't know any of you know that once i filed a case agaisnt the systom. But with the immediate disappointment through the deniel of arjuna award prompted me to give the strongest shock i can make; that is nothing other than my retirement. Though i was considering to give up atheltics, I am sure, I can still make one gold in Doha and a medal in commonwealth games. But again I learned my retirement may rebuilt the arjuna award systom, it may help at least to the atheltes like K.M.Binu, who I am thinking oneof our best bet.
The discussion seems, it may happens.
Therefore i am very firm, strong and desperately dedicated to my decesion. But again I know it is not the end my of my reoad, I have to prove a lot to our sporting society as I did in all my life. i know I am not a great athelte like usha, Anju or even beena. But I did a very big role, that none of them never did. But it isnot the end, but just the end of the begining. I will prove with my life many more things. That is what I am depressing my provocation to write a different autobiography. I know I can write a different stuff focussing on why India falis to win a medal in Olympic? ( I published a book in malayalam just after my life in Russia, it was not a sports thing, but about the socio-politcal cahnges in post soviet systom)Bur I can't finish my life with an autobiography as many great things are awaiting me. I have to provoke our society for many more years. I know i can do it with the support of the genuine people like you.
Bobby Aloysius
It is an honour to hear from you Bobby Aloysius. But please don't retire -- you still have a lot more you can do by competing for India at the Asiad, Commonwealth Games and perhaps even at the Beijing Olympics...
The Arjuna award is the minimum that an Indian sportsperson aspires in terms of an award. Having crossed 30, Bobby knows her career is coming to an end. She had to have something to keep herself motivated. She had suffered disappointments, non-selection to Bangkok Asiad, Sydney Olympics etc. Now, this. She apparently couldn't stand it.
Mugu, great Quote!!! I am with you 100% !!!
The thing with sports awards is that many of them are given on basis of reputation rather than perfmormance. It evens happens in international sports awards.
I agree awards are some time subjective / based on reputation. But how do you think reputations are made. Sunny, we should rather attempt to change the way, these awards are rewarded rather than not going for it...
If there is an award in my field, I am going to go for it!!! This is a natural reaction for more than 95% of the general population!!! Every employee in a company would want to win the Employee of the year/ month award, how is that different from an athlete who wants to win the top award in his field
I would like to bring up the issue of Nirupama Vaidyanathan being ignored for this award till date ........I feel she is one of the greatest Indian Sports women & one who has set examples / been inspiration to many. It is a degrade to the award that Niru hasn't been given this yet.
In any field one should try & move up for their own satisfaction. Awards do help in many ways as extrinsic motivaton. But the intrinsic motivation is more important. If someone isnt given an award due to whatever reason, she should have the ambition & fire to excel more. What a great opportunity it is..... Bobby if she is a true sportsman, should come out of retirement & go get it.
If she hasn't taken up the sport just to get the Arjuna Award, then that should not be the reason to leave the sport.
The Indian sports officials made blunders by ignoring the legitimate claims of some Indian athletes for the Arjuna Award but the sorry state of affairs do not end there.
Officials of the Sports Ministry cannot locate the Delhi address of the chairman of the Arjuna Awards selection committee Major H P S Ahluwalia to send him an anvitation to the awards ceremony. Some sports journalists have also not received the invitation to the ceremony that will take place on September 21st, 2004 at the Rashtrapathi Bhawan.
And the story does not end here.... Could something else go wrong, you ask?
The Finance Ministry has rejected twice the proposal of footing the bill of the customary dinner given to the athletes. Their reason? Austerity measures.
God, save India from the wretched and corrupt politicians.
The Finance Ministry has rejected twice the proposal of footing the bill of the customary dinner given to the athletes. Their reason? Austerity measures
Height of Absurdity!!! Why didn't they just go ahead and reduce the number of officials in the olympic team ?? Man I feel so angry, that I fear for the safety of my keyboard!!!!!!
mugu wrote:
The problem with awards is that are given out on what others think of your performance. This is often highly subjective (and often also biased). Unless an athlete was totally dominant in a certain year, the choice for athlete of the year is never a landslide victory.
I thought we were discussing Bobby being ignored for the Arjuna award. I dont think she was ever in contention, now or in the past, for the `athlete of the year award' (in our case the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, that has gone to Anju George this year.)
Are awards the ultimate goal of an athlete, I guess, was prompted by Bobby's announcement of her retitement, in disgust after being ignored for the Arjuna Award for the fourth year in a row.
If the topic had come a month before the anouncement of the awards, we could have discussed it without bringing up names.
Thanks everybody for your continues approach to do with my business again.But I am sorry, I have decided it with enough thoughts.
I always think many times before taking decesion. I never used to think it again once it happens, whatever its consiquences. I am repeating, the denial of Arjuna was just a provocation for me. Many other injustice I have faced so far. If still I stick on with this type of fighting, I am afraid, I will be an anti-atheltic women so near. I really don't want as I love so much atheltics, in particular High Jumping.
I would like to repeat, it is not the end of my road. I know why I became an unsuccessful athelte. This lesson should help me to produce a successfull athelte. I am not going to settle down in England or stick on with costoms bureaucracy. Otherwise no meaning I am still continue my studies in England, though all my people are in Kerala.
I had prepared a small project to support the athletes who need basic finacial support in anticipation to recieved the arjuna. Hope I can rennovate my project in an another circumstances.
All of you will be appreciated if put an end to request me to start the sports again. Let us discuss, how our sporting culture will be changed, and how we will win at least one medal form Beijing.
A question to all: I f I soon start a project to support few selected medal hopefuls, can anyone help me? If I plan to finacially support some rural atheltes to sustain, what may be the response from the NRI world? No doubt with all possible means of transperency only.
I don't want to pester Bobby to rethink her decision to retire, but I do have some general comments about Indian sports persons' view of awards, and their general experience with the country's sports administration.
I often find Indian athletes taking the polticians who run (ruin?) Indian sports and their actions so much more to heart and forgetting the goodwill from the crores of Indian sports fans.
Aren't we and what we feel, more important? .. And we do represent a large number of silent, voiceless, fans who have got some voice only through the internet.
Perhaps it is time that all our athletes and sportsmen/women forgot all about the awards our politician sports mandarins give, and the injustices they commit on them.
In professional sports abroad, the fans have a voice through their wallet (they buy the tickets) and through their acceptance of the market value of a sports person (endorsements). None of the athletes in the US, forinstance, really care for any awards handed out by a set of politicians. There is no "John Kennedy Play Diamond" equivalent of a Rajeev Gandhi Khel Ratna in the US. If there were and it were given out by a bunch of politicians at the recommendation of sports federations, nobody would give a damn. There are awards like the "Heisman" in College American Football, given on a vote by a large number of sports writers. Also Hall Of Fame inductance "awards" in various sports, again mostly decided by sports writers and such. None by politicians.
In India also, I really don't give a damn for any Arjuna or Dronacharya or Khel Ratna award. If it is not based on a vote by fans or a good number of people who know sports (like sports writers) it has no value in my mind.
Back to my point, it is time Indian sports persons did everything with their own goals and the general Indians's aspirations in mind. You will know when your are accepted. It will be through what reception you get from common people. This is happening in cricket a bit and also in the case of others like LP, MB, Anand, Rathore, etc.
I am not saying it has been (or is) easy for Indian sports persons to do what I am asking for. I understand the practical difficulties arising from lack of money and support due to injustices from the sports politicians. Ultimately Indian sports persons also would learn to forget about the federations and the politicians and have a chance to have direct support purely due to popularity (which often stems from results, and causes endoresements and other support mechanisms). We are not there yet.
I hope to see ten years from now, none of our sportsmen talking about the federations or politicians or Arjuna awards. I hope to see them finding that they are getting support because the fans are there recognizing their achievements and showing how popular they are. I hope not to hear of a BobbY Aloysius having to go through what she had to and be disgusted to the point of retiring.
Bobby: I am sure you have throught of the nameless supporters who did not have a way of supporting you. Those who did not find any marketing people testing if you were popular, to show that you were indeed popular to the extent your achievments deserved - like the asiad medals and Indian records. But these fans like me were always there. If I needed to send you a $10, I could not - because our country is not mature enough to have a mechanism where I would buy 50 bottles of a sports drink just because your picture was on them (thus transfering $25 to the company which would have given you $10 out of it).
Down the line we will have a country were the country can show appreciation to the sports people in different ways and a sports person does not have to rely on laurels given by politicians.
The bottom line is - we were always there. Our support and good wishes (and even money) were always there - even if nobody found a way to get them from us to you. For us, Bobby, you were an Arjuna athlete. But our silent voices had no way to be heard. Wish we could have conveyed it you and prevented you from retiring.
If you need to raise funds for a project, I am sure that the forumites(most definitely
me, I'm a RI) will help out. Do get your proposal ready and estimate the amount
of money that you will need and the period over which it will required initially. You
can post the details on your website so that prospective donors will be able to
peruse through it and help you. I am also sure that the state government of state
where you will be based might also be willing to help by giving you some basic
infrastructure in the form of land/training sites.
I wanted to clarify my recent post as I am not at all ready to accept any money at the moment as I am undecided about it yet. Also I personally do not need any penny at this stage. What I wanted to know from you all is just your view about the possibility. I will let you know what was my earlier plan. I think it is better to wait one more year at least for a mjor break up to announce my project.
