Why has India so less number of athletes?

India wins its first boxing medal- all credit to Vijender Kumar- and the media is thronging at a place which otherwise would have been deserted and news channels would have hardly covered his interview would he have had lost his game. Same applies to wrestler Sushil Kumar who won his bronze medal.

Now that they have made India proud and achieved the much needed attention, will the Indian Government still be able to render them with the basic infrastructure needed to groom an athlete?
Would athletes (besides the cricketers) be backed up by the much required sponsors who only support an established star?
Or are we still going to see only cricketers being awarded with Lamborginis, Ferraris, plush apartments, etc. ? The money which was being distributed for honouring the Olympians went upto crores. This leaves us no doubt that the govt has a great deal of money. But they also have no knowledge (or hardly do they care about) utilizing it in the right fashion.

Ok tell me...How many Indian sportsperson do you remember? When answering this question many would probably start with Dhoni, Sehwag, Tendulkar, etc....and then after scratching your head you would say "err there is Pa...Pad....Padukone....Padukone....i guess he's Deepikas's father?, then after a long pause "Yes! Vishwanathan Anand". The point is that India needs a star player to be recognized. Unless he/she wins a medal (it has to be gold) only then will he/she be remembered for long. This will have an everlasting impression on our minds until the next T20 match.

The govt can bring up special sports schools or they could invest in building playgrounds, courts for tennis, swimming, badminton, etc. For e.g. In India, there are hardly any swimming schools. Even if they are available they are so far from one's house that he/she can easily loose interest in taking admission there. Some schools still rely on imparting education only through books. But thanks to ICSE & CBSE schools which are now bringing up infrastructure to a higher level.
Parents should also should take initiative in encouraging their children to play some kind of sport to make him not only mentally but also physically fit. The mindset of Indian families need to be modified for the betterment of their children and also for our country. Youngsters having talent should be groomed well otherwise what is the use of that talent which has never challenged its abilities?

India is still in its developing stages where poverty is still the no. 1 problem. A lot needs to be done for this yet. But if we do not spend on such athletic events to win World Cups or Gold Medals we would never have won the 1983 Cricket World Cup also.

We need to change our attitudes first, only then can we change the world.

Inspiring

Bacheha-Ye aseman (Children of Heaven) : Its a simple story about a brother's sacrifices for his sister.

Brother (Ali) lost his sister (Zahra)'s shoes...Father cannot afford to buy them a new pair of shoes as they are poor...They keep quiet on this matter by not letting their father to know about the lost shoes...Ali comes up with the idea of sharing shoes with Zahra...until one day when Ali takes part in an inter-school running competition where the 3rd winner gets a pair of brand new sport shoes...He promises Zahra that he will come 3rd...Ali runs for Zahra till his last breath only to discover that he has stood 1st...This completely shatters him. Its a Persian film but watch it with English subtitiles.

P.S. Don't watch this film if ur E.Q.(Emotional Quotient) is high...U will definitely shed a lot of tears while watching it.

Taare Zameen Par: Now, wat do i say abt dis one. I m speechless. This muvi is close 2 me...No not that i am a dyslexic but it reminds me of my school days wen i used 2 take part in drawing competitions and win awards along with d efforts of my Art Teacher who used 2 inform me abt d coming competitions across India and my parents who tuk immense pleasure in letting me participate. She used 2 call me her child...I missed her a lot while watching dis muvi.

Rocky: Hear just the first 3 seconds of Bill Conti's theme song and you too will be ready to take on the world. An underdog boxer who overcomes all odds to make it.

Places Snaps

A convent school in Thane, India
View from my building terrace
Talao Pali at Thane, India

Talao Pali

People Snaps

The other half of life!
Buy my melons!

Animal Snaps

Are you clickin me-ow?
All Lined up!

My trip to Saputara!

Beside God!

Cry me a river!

Twilight at Godavari!

Neelkanth temple at Godavari, Nashik

Dark clouds hovering a village

Hoping for rains!

Misty!

Saputara, the alternate heaven!

All fogged up: Godavari , Nashik

A road too far!

My Friend's Love For His Friend

Well I am jobless for now as the IT Sector in India is at a standstill. I left my previous job because I needed time to hone my skills for a better one as I didn't have enough time in my hand whenever I returned home from work. I am filling my time to updatemyself by acquiring Java certifications (its a software certification related to my job as a programmer). I also spend some time sketching people.

This sketch is one of my not so close friend's friend whom I had never seen before.One day he called me up and requested me if I could help him by making a portrait of his dear friend who was going abroad for further studies.He is a nice chap and it was his first ever request since we had been friends with each other. So I readily accepted his request and he quickly said it in a very delighted tone "OK then, I will handover the photograph to you soon". He dropped by my house later that night with one of his friends and told me to complete it within 2 days as she was leaving after 3 days. He wanted to gift her a scrapbook with her sketch on the cover page.He then asked me to show him my previous works to his friend so that he could satisfy himself that it was going to the right person. He said he had no problems. So I started my work the next day and completed it within 6 hours spread across 2 days.

I then called him up informing him about the completed sketch. The next early morning he came by my home and saw this sketch. He was really amazed to see it and thanked me. He took it and left. I was really happy that he liked it.

He then told me how his friend to whom he gifted the sketch loved it. She started sobbing as soon as she saw her portrait and thanked him a lot. There were also other friends of my friend. They all demanded my cell number from him so that they could call me up for a sketch of theirs.
I made the sketch for my friend because he had faith in me and I didn't want to let him down by saying no. Moreover it was just a sketch and I had the talent, so why not?From that day on the roots of our friendship have become even more strong and I am even become a little more confident in delivering what I say.

Good-old-freind's wedding!

The girl in the sketch was one of my best buddies during my college years. I had my friends (we were a group of four friends--2 girls and 2 boys--one of them is her). She got married last year. We were the best of friends. Infact some thought that we were a couple. We had good but not so great moments during our college days. We used to bunk lectures and sit in the college canteens. Our college had the biggest campus in the city and that was the only biggest thing we thought our college had ;). There were 5 colleges in our campus. So there were 2 canteens and 1 open cafeteria (always crowded with chicks and dudes). Even we, the fantastic 4, used sit there and discuss how boring the lectures were and worst, how to celebrate our next friendshipday, rose day, chocolate day, denim day...our college was popular mostly for such days where even people from other colleges in the city used to throng in our campus just to celebrate those weird days. They thought that ours was the only college where they can have any kind of freedom....yea any kind of (put in whatever weird thing you can think of). This brought down the reputaion of our college a little bit down. But we still spent our best of our time in here. This guy in the sketch knew my friend and they both used to hang out often after college. She told me that he had proposed to her after he left school and was in college. She said yes to him and since then they both are with each other. I and my other 2 friends used to crack jokes on him on the way he was with my friend. She used to get so angry when she would hear us talking crap about him. She loved her so much. It was only after college that we stopped pulling her leg.

This sketch was made by me as a gift to her & her husband. It took me 7 days to complete this sketch. I devoted atlest 2 hrs per day to complete it as I also had my studies to be done.

My friends were thinking of the usual things to gift her. But I didn't like their idea as she was my best buddy and that is why the gift had to be unique in itself. So I thought that I should use my long lost talent which I had left far away after I finished my school.

Actually we lost contact after our college. She didn't even call or message me or any of our friends. I still wonder why there was such a miscommunication between all of us. I had never even asked her about it. We didn't even have each other's numbers. So one fine day I decided to call her up (I got her number from the telephone directory on the internet as I knew her last name). I called her up I was shocked to hear that she got engaged with him, though we friends knew she was going to marry him and nobody else. But what was surprising that she never called us up at her engagement and as I had called her up I and my rest of the friends got invited to her wedding. We certainly didn't wish to go for her wedding as she lost contact with all of us. But for old friendship's sake we had to make a move. So one day I and one of our friend decided to meet her before her marriage. I took a photograph of her engagment and took it home saying "I will make this photograph a bigger one, frame it and gift it to you". She happily let me take that photograph. I converted that snap to a sketch, framed it and was ready to gift her on her wedding day.

Then we (3 guys and 2 gals) arrived on her wedding day. Nobody was known to us in the wedding. We went on the stage where the couple was standing. She was surprised and happy to see us all together. We all congratulated her and her her husband. I then gifted her the sketch which was packed. She diligently unpacked the frame and was surprised to see it. She knew in the back of her mind that I was good at drawing. So she looked at me and thanked a lot. I didn't say anything to her and just smiled at her. The photographer clicked us all and we left the stage. She then told us to have dinner before leaving and his husband promised me that we would all meet somewhere after some days. Then we had our dinner and we left offering her a final bye.

I am still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled because I still want to ask her why didn't we hang around even after college.