ARE INDIANS INTRINSICALLY WEAK?

“ I’m getting tired . I can’t stand like this any more.”

One of the two black men next to me ,presumabley not from a developed country, grumbled . Obviously,he was refering to the Hobson’s choice that hundreds of thousands of Indians are faced with when they commute in a cramped railway coach.

It happened seven years ago.I was on my way to Mumbai  from  Jamnagar.To cut a long story short, I somehow managed to get into a packed unreserved compartment and secured a toehold,  near the door ,next to the aforementioned  black men .To be honest, I was rather taken aback by what I heard from the robustly–built man.Untill then, having read in history books about the ferocity of Abyssinian merceneries in countless wars and in recent times of the exploits of the likes of  Carl Louise and Mike Tison,I was quite conviced of the invincibility of the African people.

“You can’t be!.Even I am okay .You’re supposed to be stronger than us .”I told him in a lighter vein to which he replied.“May be , you are quite used to  it.”

It was then, only then that I realized that the Africans are not at all perfect in terms of physical strength and that they are not born with Hercules–like power.It is the circumstances and practice that make anyone mightier , irrespective of his or her race .

Although respected  for their scientific ,technological and management acumen,Indian are yet to make their mark as sports icons on the international scene.It is not just the rest of the world, but we have ourselves considered us physically weaker than others.

Are we athletically inferior to the people of other countries and continents?

While it still is a debatable point whether Alexander actually pipped Porus or not in the Battle of Hydaspes(at Jhulum river in the present day Punjab in Pakistan - No wonder majority of India’s Olympians are from Punjab & Haryana) in 326 BC,the  valor and strength of the subcontinent’s inhabitants prompted him to rethink on his ambitious plan to attack the powerful Nanda kingdom of the Magadha.Later ,Chandragupta Maurya defeated Alexander’s satrap Seleucus Nicator in 305 BC and became the first Indian to beat  Europeans .

Further south, King Marthanda Varma ,in the Battle of Colachel, subdued the Dutch in a naval battle in  1741 AD, that too before the indians mastered the art of gun-fighting. Was it not a triumph of strength and strategy?

China’s corporeal might has,as does Japan, its root in its martial arts tradition which originally was implanted there by the south Indian monk Bodhidharma in 5^th century AD .He was credited with introducing the basic techniques of Kung-fu as well as sowing the seeds of Zen Budhism,the philosophy at the core of Chinese and Japanese spiritual thought.Japan has already acknowledged the fact that Karate had evolved from the traditional martial art form ‘Kalarippayattu ‘of the Malabar in southern India.

Still we consider us frail,too incompetent to match up to the world’s best.

It took us a Dhara Singh to show that we were strong enough to beat any ‘Phirangi’ in the world .The name of Dhyan Chand still evokes awe in Hockey fans.And we waited for Kapil’s Devils to win the 1984 World cup and prompt us to revel in cricketmania.We had a Michael Ferreira and a Geet Sethi to remind our young men that they too can win this game,long thought to be a fiefdom of the elitist Europeans . Vishwanathan Anand is now to chess what Prakash Padukone was to badminton-they were all trend setters.The current crop of gritty shooters obviously took their inspiration from Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore as did the wrestlers from Sushil Kumar.

We seem to be waiting for someone else to show the way.We are diffident.We do not  believe in ourselves.Of course ,centuries of internecine wars and colonial rule have shattered our morale.But it is time to wake up and regain our lost glory.

It is just that we have lost our self-esteem , when it comes to physical accomplishments.And we are in dire need of sports psychologists. Even Hanuman had to undergo a counselling by Jambavan  before he could fly  across the sea to Lanka.