Such is our collective love of mediocrity and alibis for it that we believe the English designed an expression just for our needs. It is the familiar ‘in spite of’. We treat it so much as our own, that we have even patented our way of spelling it: ‘Inspite of’. And that is from much earlier than social media made most spaces, periods and spell-checks dispensable to fit into the vital 140 characters or whatever.
Our ‘in spite of’ fixation was in full evidence the last couple of weeks as the Olympic Games progressed in Rio. We just had a silver, a bronze, a fourth position in an unlikely discipline (gymnastics) and a track qualification for finals after 32 years. The rest was really nothing, barring two tough armymen clocking their personal bests in men’s marathon, finishing 25th and 26th.
A women’s marathoner came back alleging she had been denied water and nearly died of exhaustion, it was seen as a believable story, with no need for any fact-checking. Similar arguments were used for all other failures. Our shooters, it was said, are denied ammunition imports, yet got so far. The wrestlers don’t have enough air-conditioned facilities, yet competed.
The gymnast, who became a national heroine and introduced us to the Produnova, must be a prodigy because she excelled in a sport in spite of there being no facilities. Never mind that she kept on saying that there was no lack of infrastructure or facilities. We were not going to accept any Indian competitor deny herself Cinderella-hood. Full story...
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Our ‘in spite of’ fixation was in full evidence the last couple of weeks as the Olympic Games progressed in Rio. We just had a silver, a bronze, a fourth position in an unlikely discipline (gymnastics) and a track qualification for finals after 32 years. The rest was really nothing, barring two tough armymen clocking their personal bests in men’s marathon, finishing 25th and 26th.
A women’s marathoner came back alleging she had been denied water and nearly died of exhaustion, it was seen as a believable story, with no need for any fact-checking. Similar arguments were used for all other failures. Our shooters, it was said, are denied ammunition imports, yet got so far. The wrestlers don’t have enough air-conditioned facilities, yet competed.
The gymnast, who became a national heroine and introduced us to the Produnova, must be a prodigy because she excelled in a sport in spite of there being no facilities. Never mind that she kept on saying that there was no lack of infrastructure or facilities. We were not going to accept any Indian competitor deny herself Cinderella-hood. Full story...
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