It’s not the posters or promotions that help an actor become a hero. It’s performance. Similarly, it’s not the name or credentials that matter when a sports person walks into a contest. It’s only performance that makes or breaks.
When the Commonwealth Games began, there were very few names that we pinned our hopes on. Turned out, that we relied purely on the posters. The actual big screen delivered heroes we didn’t even recognise.
Take for instance a Vinesh Phogat. Do we know that Vinesh, sister of another gold-medal winning wrestler Babita Kumari had to bear the brunt of gender discrimination? Yes, it hasn’t been a bed of roses for the sisters — from lack of infrastructure to the abundance of unapproving eyeballs — the journey has been nowhere close to being easy. While the government played its own part lending a deaf ear to their requirements, the only glimmer of hope in their lives was their family.
Coming from Haryana, where families are essentially cocooned in patriarchal views, even education is a luxury for women. Sports is a far-fetched dream. To be born there and to have an interest in wrestling is enough to raise eyebrows. More so, if the women demanded an acre of land for practice. So focussed were the sisters that they never took no for an answer. They elbowed away they men and stepped into their grounds to practice and sharpen their skills. And when they fought so many odds to get to that big a platform, they weren’t letting it go that easily.
Ever heard of the name K Sanjita Chanu? A name that people struggled to even pronounce, is now a hero. How, you ask? She won a weightlifting gold. Who is she? She’s an Indian weightlifter. Jeers like ‘are you Chinese,’ have stopped bothering her. She goes about her business rather quietly. But place a 48-kg weight in front of the 4’11†woman, and see her true colours.
Today, some people know her thanks to the yellow metal that dangles around her neck. But being a woman and picking a sport that defies how an Indian woman is traditionally perceived, her gold came with a hefty price tag. Being from the Northeast didn’t make it any easier. However, as I said earlier, it isn’t that name or credentials. It’s the performance. The right one, at the right time.
Imagine being the son of a security guard and dreaming of flying across the seven seas to perform in front of an international crowd. “Dream within your limits,†people would have retorted back then. But that chap today is Satish Sivalingam, proud owner of a Commonwealth gold. Coming from a modest background doesn’t make things rosy.
In fact, it just adds to the misery of the fact that the boy wasn’t talented in a ‘more lucrative’ sport like cricket, which would keep the moolah rolling. But instead of getting discouraged, he took up his passion and struck gold, bringing laurels to himself, his family and his nation.
Heroes are not made by posters. They are made by performances.