act of faith
Date :07-Sep-2020
EVEN as major sport tournaments and contests get going the world over, the first realisation in the heart of every lover of sport -- either the player or the spectator -- is that playing in the current pandemic conditions, with health risks ever looming larger, with empty stands presenting a sickening spectacle is nothing less than act of sheer of faith in sports and its philosophy. And it is to this spirit that the world offers salutes because the players are up there out in the middle, testing their prowess, and proving their abilities -- almost to themselves.
The spectator element in modern sports has shaped its nature in the past 100-plus years. And with the advent of technology, almost every action in the sporting arena is done with an awareness of the camera glare that beams the event straight into drawing rooms the world over. That technological outreach still exists in full measure, so to say. But what is missing is the physical excitement of overflowing, shouting, heaving, sulking, jostling, hissing, stands that breathe life into the action in the middle -- in every sport: from soccer to hockey to carom to cricket to chess to swimming to boxing to rowing to athletics to ...! It must be terribly difficult for the playing community to step beyond that jostle and bustle and hustle and play in what can be easily construed as a deafening silence.
That is nothing but an act of sheer of faith -- propelled by an inner drive of excellence that rises above the need for mass appreciation of good showing under intense competition. In other words, the world of sports has to travel back to childhood play when only two or three kids play any game -- cricket or football or hockey or wrestling -- for the sheer pleasure of it, unbothered by the fact that no one is watching them or appreciating their performance. That little clutch of boys or girls is a self-contained unit that plays, watches, commentates, writes scores, criticises, fights, hugs and hurrays one another.
To that primitive expression of faith unbound by showmanship or showcasing or recognition by outsiders, today’s sports under pandemic conditions must travel. That alone will give sports the steel it needs in these trying times, in these excruciating silences. Play for yourself, enjoy the game, win or lose, pat one another -- and move on for the long (perhaps not so long) wait for better times to arrive in due course. Of course, it is easier said than done. Yet, sportspersons all over the world have already been doing exactly that -- and for which they deserve full-scale appreciation by empty stands that still carry the spectator spirit and distant drawing rooms across the globe from where a silent metaphysical participation in the sport takes place from faceless spectators in platonic connect.
The act of sheer faith about which we are now talking, thus, has a sublime dimension which actually highlights the motto of Olympics: Citius (Faster) - Altius (Higher) - Fortius (Stronger). And do all this for yourself -- so that you continue adding glory to the endeavour of mounting excellence that scales human limitations. It is into this zone that modern sports has travelled -- for the present!