TELEVISTA
Sporting drama at its best
Amita Malik

I know that those who are not interested in sport find its long sessions on television boring, if not irritating. Especially football and tennis lovers feel a little humiliated that they hardly get a look-in in national debates unless, of course, it is cricket or the great European football frenzy but even they will admit that the Federer-Nadal saga was sporting drama at its best.

Every Indian channel, from the snotty English ones to every Indian language channel had their viewers glued to their sets for the 10 days, interrupted by rain, which held sway in Wimbledon this year, as in other years. The favourite English topic of conversation is the weather, and one did not blame them. But other parts of the world felt it too. And in this context I must lodge a strong protest against that Chinese (or is it Thai?) girl with the American accent as well as the producers of the programme for giving their timings for Hong Kong and Singapore, as if India did not exist. Pakistan, which also loves tennis and some of its young players are coming up slowly on the international scene, is totally ignored too. Had it not been for the comforting presence of Vijay Amritraj as commentator, India would not have had a look in.

Incidentally, one still took an interest in the fortunes of Leander Paes, with still another foreigner as partner. How one wished that he had played this time too with Mahesh Bhupathi and not at the least moment in preparation for the Olympics at Beijing.

And that reminds me: How well the Chinese girls are doing in tennis on the international scene. Zeng lost at the Serena Williams stage. India still has only Sania Mirza flying its flag, very gallantly, in spite of facing the wrong kind of flak at the wrong moments at home to the extent that she had to threaten to pull out of India rather than battle out the silly controversies built around her name. I am told that the main reason that girls are coming up so rapidly in tennis is because the state gets the top international coaches to teach them. In fact, even Thailand and Indonesia have more tennis players in international competitions than perhaps men.

It is the other way round in India. And we have the means. Contrast Serbia, which has thrown up young top players like Jokovic and Jankovic, not to forget Ana of the lovely smile and lovelier tennis. In fact, so turbulent was the politics of the country that the players confessed they had no tennis courts and they actually had to play in a dry swimming pool, using the walls for proactive. And they not only do it with a smile, but Jokovic, who is a brilliant mimic, has often been persuaded to mimic the mannerisms of Roger Federer, Maria Sharopova and other colleagues on the middle of playing serious tennis for his country.

At the time of writing, the screens are full of the terrible happenings in Kabul, where a top diplomat of the Indian Foreign Service and the Indian military attach, a brigadier have been killed by a suicide bomber in front of the Indian Embassy. Forty others were killed and several others injured. Some years ago, I had the rare privilege of being inducted into the Union Public Service Commission when it was interviewing candidates for the IAS, the IPS and allied central services.

The cream of Indian youth, both men and women, appeared before us and we felt the future would be safe in their hands. What a pity that their talent, their experience and their patriotism would be shattered in this way, not to forget the anguish to their families, their friends and the nation as a whole. Some would describe it as the field hazards of serving the country. But that does not make the loss less sad or less wasteful.