 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We are joined today by Leslie Xavier, the sports editor for NewsClick.in. And we are talking about, of course, India's performance at the Olympic Games recently concluded. We are also back from under the rock where we were hibernating, watching the games from a distance. So, of course, cheering the Indian athletes as well as looking at what went right and what went wrong for India and the context in which the present context of what is happening in the country and how all of the processes that go into the preparation of an athlete, into the preparation of a team, how all of that culminates in the Olympic process and the Olympic Games, actually. It's been a long time in the making. Of course, the games were delayed as we all know because of the pandemic. So, one year later than they were supposed to start and we've seen massive advertisements from the Indian team and the main protagonists of the Indian team saying that those extra 365 days or however many days there were have actually aided them, allowed them to train more, allowed them to focus more and benefited in, I suppose, some various other ways and how much of an effort it's taken collectively to make it even possible for our athletes given the condition that India is in and given all of the sort of tumultuous, turbulent, difficult situations that we've had to deal with in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. So, now that the noise has subsided a little bit, we thought it's an opportune time to have a chat, to understand what went right, what went wrong and how perhaps we can look at sport in India from a systemic perspective as well as, of course, celebrate the individual achievements of the athletes who have done well, particularly of Nira Chopra and the six other medalists, but there's a team as well, so several more. Let's see, good to, good to, yeah, of course. Teams would ask the champ, right? So, hockey medal is as if India, collective India won that way. It's taken it as such because there's a historic connection as well where hockey was the first medal that we won at the Olympic Games post-independence and it represented the country on to the global stage that way. So, it's a symbolic victory always, it's always been celebrated like that. Yeah, you were saying something. Yeah, yeah. No, I was, I mean, we're trying to, of course, condense two weeks of athletic sort of process into one conversation but more than that we're also looking at the previous five-year cycle that has gone into the training of these athletes and the system that supports them and taxpayers who support them and all of that that goes in. So, it's a challenging thing to do especially given that we have approached this without a proper rundown and our own structure being in place. But so, let's start with Neeraj Chopra then because it was the most recent and obviously it's also the first and only time that an Indian athlete has won an athletics gold medal at the Olympic Games. So, what do you make of Neeraj? He's young, of course, he's been trained and supported by the army and the government in his efforts. But beyond that, what do you make of Neeraj as both an individual as an athlete and what do you make of the system that goes into preparing someone like Neeraj or an Olympic gold medalist in this kind of individual sort of pursuit? The individual sport is a different beast altogether. We started off by talking about hockey and how it represents the country and all that. So, when a program is being devised for team sport, there are a lot of considerations about compositions, the factors in gameplay and all that. But individual, it's not as far as I see these athletes are governed by federation, right? They oversee their preparations and all that. But Neeraj, his journey, when you look at it or for instance any of those athletes who have won individual medals at the Games for India they also have that innate drive to excel. That mindset that we are there and we could win, be it Mirabai Chano, be it P.V. Sindhu. P.V. Sindhu, for instance, if you can compare, she's like any other pro athlete on tour on badminton. So, they compete as a professional through the circuit, the international badminton federation circuit and then they have their own ranking systems, Sindhu is ranked 7th in the world. And from there you sort of recalibrate into this Olympic Games where you have to... So, in that regard, when I would like to quote Aditi, the golfer. So, she said that I didn't know, I mean, it's very difficult for her to do this recalibration and when you play on the golf tour, you have that idea that you can finish 10th and also you are earning something, you are earning ranking points, you are celebrated as well. I mean, for instance, in a major if you finish 10th, it's an achievement in itself. You earn money, you earn accolades, whatever that comes with that. Ranking points, rise in rankings, whatever. But in Olympics, someone asked her the question, first up, a long thing to answer. Some journalist should also be a little diligent about such things because how do you feel like getting into this fourth place club? So, she said, I didn't know that there is a club that celebrated and it's weird for me in the sense to... So, that's the whole different idea of individual sport. But within that individual realm, there are events like boxing where there is a lot of... Molding of the athlete requires that support structure around. Where a lovely enough Barogain can't pursue a career like a PV Sindhu. She is dependent on the government sending her for competitions. She is dependent on the structure provided by the training facilities of the government. Sindhu trained in England, Lavelina trained at the size centre. So, when we look at Olympics as a collective group of events happening, there are individual dynamics in there. So, when we take Neeraj Chopra's achievement and when we take Bajrang Puneer's achievement, of course, these are individual medals. But the path that the athlete goes through in wrestling to reach a bronze medal and the path that Neeraj took to reach gold medal, these two are entirely different. So, getting back to Neeraj, how special it is? Neeraj was a special talent, I would say because his talent has reached that potential now. So, it's actualised and from here where that's another question altogether. Of course, he has to, I mean, he's young, he's in his mid-20s, so he has to push himself further. He has at least two Olympics of prime left, so next Olympics being very close. But his journey, I mean, so we have to take into perspective the idea that we don't look at the five-year Olympic cycle, let's go back further down. His journey is in the sport in itself, it's just nine-year-old, which is small for an Olympic champion. So, that probably says a lot about the talent that Neeraj possesses. But it also says a lot about how bad our scouting system or the feeding system is. So, Neeraj got into the sport by chance and he was just asked by a senior who was training, are you interested in doing it? He said, yeah, let me try. And they realised that he has a natural flair for it, trained out into the system. And then from there, all these private entities who support Indian sport, the top athletes, something like an OGQ or a Go Sport, Neeraj is a JSW athlete, so JSW sport. So, they get into it much later. Neeraj proved himself with medals at the junior levels. He then got into that structure where he got into the tops program as well as getting funding and then the real preparation happened. How do you get from a junior to that higher level? That's where training abroad and the long strings abroad, getting a foreign coach to work on the body dynamics, bio dynamics and all that. And it all culminated perfectly to such an extent that he didn't, at the grand stage, he was ready for the stage, which is biggest rival was not, surprisingly. So, a man, Johannes Wetter, who is throwing 90 metre plus. To be fair, I myself, I just, till the medal happened, I was just thinking that he can't win gold. Next through somebody. Yeah, somebody will, because I knew he can touch his personal best or close to that. That much of respect we had for Neeraj Chopra because he has proven that. Time and again in competition, he has bettered his own. So, that's that critical point that where at the Olympics, it's not just consistency, it's not just technical brilliance, but there is also this factor which has to fall in place and Neeraj, the team around him, and it's obvious and it's also his personal drive at all because Neeraj is one athlete who has constantly been vocal about, I need this, I need that. And sometimes, I mean, we journalists have also found it a little this thing that, so apparently 1.8 crore was spent on his preparations by TOPS, TOPS. In how many years? In the Olympic cycle, in the five-year cycle. Five-year cycle. Sorry, maybe this is a bit distracting, but how does that compare with, let's say, another top athlete in another sport from another country? In terms of what is spent in their training and development, is it at par? Is it more? Is it less in your opinion? What happens with athletes abroad is that a part of it, they are on their own, they are defendable, which is why the Indian system is as its positives that way because athlete is taken care of by the system, provided he is there. So, it's a top-heavy system. So, someone like a veteran would also need to figure out his private resources, backers, and sponsorships. And someone like Neeraj Chopra, the sponsorships and the endorsements and the deals which come now, it's all personal. Of course, he will use some of it to push himself further, but otherwise the entire program is, yeah, it's a bureaucratic mess, but it's met by the government. So, same thing applies. So, this is something that we have spoken about in the previous games as well. A US multiple gold medalist would probably be looking for a job after the games, while an Indian bronze medalist is a multi-millionaire after that. He can just sit and relax. So, that's the difference. Also with the government job. Also with the government job, with pension, whatever. So, that's the difference in system. But it also has its problems because being top-heavy, the problem with funding like a top is that you only give it to people who have broken through fighting all the odds that are there, all the pitfalls that are there. So, as an athlete, when do you need the support? I mean, it's a simple example that I can give from my personal experience is that when I was, I mean, I used to wrestle at a much lower level, Nationals and all, I used to compete. So, when I used to train, I used to get, there is a company called Pama in Jalandhar. So, I used to get the shoes from them, running shoes, Nivya wrestling shoes. So, Pama shoes was 250 bucks for a pair. And now I am far from wrestling, far from any sort of professional sport and I wear ASIC's shoe and all those things and walk to the park and come back. So, when I needed these shoes, it was not there. It's not like if I had gotten ASIC's, I would have been an Olympic medalist. No, I was never that talented or never that diligent in training. But that's the example. That's the thing I want to say. We had anybody, someone like Neeraj. I mean, we have stories of Bajrangpunia struggling at the early part and then luckily he had a mentor in Yogeshwar who would give some money for the dietary requirement when he was junior and when he was not better off. So, these kind of small, small help, at least help each other. Like for instance, I have heard that Mirabai Chanu does that for the kids at the academy. In fact, we did a story by Bhairav Raghunandhan. We did a story after Mirabai Chanu won her silver talking to her first coach in Manipur. And she said about the time that this girl walked into the training hall 11 years old she was and then she was one of many. And now when Mirabai enters that academy again, she will see under other Mirabai's because everybody has the same back story. And so she, having reached a place, she helps out. So that kind of, so I would say a top of the system has its problems because, yeah. Because it's top of the, because, yeah, it earns us medals. So seven medals we can celebrate. But then the problem is that what next, what about 2028? So, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I don't jump the gun. We won't get into the what next yet. Yeah, yeah. I myself wrote a story saying that we shouldn't be doing that, whether we can't help that either. And we'll get to it in this conversation itself. But just before we get there to what next, just a little more on what is actually. And in that context, firstly, something like a javelin throw. We have the people watching us. So you take the bow. Yes. It has a microphone. It is moving. Yeah, so, we have the people who are watching us. There are a lot of not very few who have access to a javelin. Right. Ok. It's in Hindi that people say it's fine, but it's not as common or as simple If you are playing somewhere in the park, then you will get a chance to throw the ball. This is not the case. So, for even Neeraj to have access to that first event or that first setting where he got a chance to try it, how challenging is that for someone who is on the ground and let's say he is a young boy or girl or any other gender playing sport at the age of 8 or 10 and wants to maybe pursue this a little more seriously. It's odds are stacked beyond imagination unless now for instance Panipat has produced Neeraj, so maybe they will start a center there so Panipat boys and girls might get a better chance but talent doesn't come from a fixed pocket especially in events such as at athletics because if you look at running or jumping or so but getting back to your question, so in my college days and we had at least training all over the place so we had a champion Javelin, the university champion, all in the university champion that year in fact Antony, his name was, he left because he had a fractured shoulder and he had to leave the sport altogether but for him when he was training initially, he was training without a coach, he had some district coach when he was in school level and in college there was no coach specifically for Javelin. So the thing with Javelin is that if you are a running athlete, if you are a running race track athlete, you can make do with probably a sprint coach also because the basic workout, basic drills, basic and certain sense of the sport transcends here of course, it's not ideal but at least you have a coach but Javelin, you need specialized coaches for throw, it's simple because I mean you have seen these athletes throw at the Olympic level and after the games, after Neeraj's gold, I went to Jan Zalekhni's YouTube video just to see because I mean Neeraj himself was quoted earlier that he was his idol and he used to watch YouTube videos, tried to mimic him and then picked up some of it then subsequently coaches corrected things but the technique I wanted to see about exactly follow through, falling off kind of the style. So it's not like run, take the momentum, follow through, specific angles are involved. So 45 degree angle when you're in this position, I mean that video was showing everything, the release, the foot position, everything to the dates like rocket science, so that kind of a correction need to happen at the starting level and it never happened for my friend whom I am mentioning plus being a Javelin coach it's a very lonely process be it this fellow Anthony or be it another there was this another amateur. So rainy season at the college ground we are going to the wrestling hall and I see this guy and he's doing something I said what is this guy doing so finally throw the hammer and went into some ditch water logged so you can't find it so he's like doing this he's trying to figure it out and then he takes it back and then runners give him Gali saying that because there's no net production at all when you're training right so I said so when they come they're just giving abusive these things you don't learn how they're going to see we are running is training it's not a job to look at and so yeah runners have their own reason why they do that but so these are I mean so and you're talking about Kerala where it produces a lot of athletes and then you're talking about a college which is good in sport and then this is what a Javelin athlete and a amateur athlete was going through so then imagine a kid who wants to take the Javelin now and so in in in my post analysis story I mentioned the same thing only we people have been saying that now they will walk and literally that is the case you walk into so my friend had a I mean modern Javelin for impersonal Javelin in the college PE room you go in and you have bamboo Javelins with rusted tip and you touch that you might get septic so it's the same with schools and people say that keep boys will start using the language but I mean using you go inside pick that up start going and all that it's not as simple as that this sport is very nuanced very it requires that kind of structure for them to train and bring them up so yeah like I said Panipat might get an academy now at the grass roots if it happens it great you might get coaches and all that so that kind of small changes will happen in this sport post-neeraj but it's not large enough to say create a Javelin culture like the Czech Republic silver and bronze medalist where Czech Republic Jan Zalesky's I mean I mean next next generation of Jan so when we look at the other thing about the Olympics is that there's such a vast array of disciplines right up from artistic gymnastics to modern pentathlon to equestrian to obviously then swimming and track karate karate and now obviously also keeping in mind how technology and how urban lifestyles are changing so sports like skateboarding making these kind of things already at the Asian games level some of these are already sports right and you have there's a lot of talk around e-sports or video games essentially becoming a part of the Olympic program as well because if you talk about a mass base of mass participation as a criteria then e-sports practitioners far outnumber Javelin throwers in the world yeah probably second only to football yeah probably yeah and hockey yeah since you mentioned that is no longer a mass sport in India and yeah in India it was at some point I think but because when I when I've spoken to yeah but yeah you completely no no I mean I again like they are so there's such a vast array of disciplines there's a vast array of perspectives from which we can view sport right so in a country like India where let's say you are challenged by resources you don't have a as such a sporting culture because people are by and large still struggling for basics yeah so the opportunity to spend time and effort and money on things like sport don't necessarily exist as a natural consequence of things okay in theory we might want to say that eight hours for work eight hours for rest and eight hours for whatever I want to do right but but in those other eight hours does the system around me allow me to actually develop into my best self or you know pursue whatever it is that I'm looking for so in that context how does the establishment view sport is it key olympics mejha ke medal korn jeetega yeah is it key amare desh mein kisport ko badotri deni chahi jitne zyada log kheel sakein utne zyada ko khilne ka moka mele to yeh perspective kya hai abin do ex go to Japan only to get into this discussion about the larger idea of societal physical education if I get I mean I'm coining it so judo an Olympic discipline karate and Olympic discipline these two where I mean so judo is a toothless version of jujitsu it's a gentler non-little sporty version of jujitsu and karate's original version which was from Okinawa was not meant to be what we saw I mean if people have seen the action in Japan you would see kata demonstration event and also sparring which is similar to fencing where you punch and you don't really knock out the opponent but you punch and you have to I mean it's skill-based and sports karate so karate was tweaked made less lethal the drills were made standardized so that it can be used for mass training they introduced it into schools colleges for huge classes where the entire student base come there and train so one instructor and yeah yeah 200 300 people you the basic so the basic kata a student in karate learns now is not unless you have direct of lineage to a Okinawan style it would be something which is sports karate base karate based which came out of Japan not Okinawa and geographically speaking I mean just to just to give that info Okinawa is an island it's it's in the Pacific Ocean occupied by Americans during the world war and completely disconnected from the Japanese chain of violence in fact Okinawa's connection if you look at it would be closer to China than Japan before Japan took over so so that's that's that's too sport that I giving an example from Japan and how Japan implemented it into the social structure as a means to get their youth and their population fitter so you become a karate practitioner you become a judo practitioner and you continue it for life so it's like you going for a weekend football so let me yeah I was going to interrupt you also to ask what is if I'm let's say I'm the sports minister right so what is apart from this medals and obviously like the joy and the national prestige the PR angle of it what is the actual and this might be a very obvious question so I apologize but what is the benefit of giving sport or giving people access to the sport to any sport physical activity society that will progress so that's that's that's that was the Japanese outlook for Kiran Rijiju who was the sports minister till two months back so this Olympic cycle he was the biggest contributor he was at the hell most of the time at the policy level so he he was celebrating with the which champagne neither any of us I mean I saw it on Twitter the video and so he feels that his legacy as sports minister is fulfilled or it's as least a certain level which needs celebration because seven medals in India's highest but for me if I am a sports administrator I would look at it differently I would want legacy to be long-lasting you that's that's the whole idea what sport that's that that's why sport is special than any other human endeavor so you look at generations you look at future you look at so when you say healthy society it's a cliche that we keep going about it's healthy society so what is an healthy society it's it's it's when you decide that the next generation is healthy and the next generation is healthy or maintain that health idea the fitness idea so so when we devise you know I would I would have preferred our country our policymakers devising a system where sport becomes more more aggliderated more universal where everybody plays and everybody plays for the for the beauty of sport for what it what it gives to the personality to to your health to your system to the to your way of life to your outlook and then of course the best will always come out because everybody's playing so the best has to come out so this is an idea which Terry waltz and I'm mentioning Terry waltz now because Terry waltz was the Indian hockey coach 2013 2014 that that period and Australian a great hockey player of his time as well so he was at the start of this bunch this generation of hockey players some of them had started off under waltz and waltz had introduced this idea of fitness and he was telling me before a campaign which the team was going to you know that I'm focusing on fitness and getting the players up to up to the mark fitness wise and I'm looking at fitness culture not match fitness because that fitness culture is important and that's what comes out when India play Australia for instance because Australia everybody plays sport Australia it's a cultural thing so you're saying that years of playing sport from childhood till where you are till where you are as a pro athlete that makes a difference in how your body responds to training responds to peak the plan for peaking all this conditioning all this thing so it takes years he said so he's working with this place to introduce that in stages so that at some point they are there it just builds so so with Indian players he said that it requires that much more work because that culture is not there and also the other aspects like deficient like getting back to what I had said earlier when I discussed Mirabai and all that not getting the things and it's not just about shoes it's about dietary requirements also something as basic as food so so when you when you're when you're developing your muscles and you only have that kind that period where your hormones kicking pre puberty teenage and then you're off then you're practically dying unless you keep on building yourself sports versions do that but that that building stage of muscles of the sport in we have to tap into that and that's where we lose out to so walsh's idea of that fitness so that that again will draw from the larger base that we can create if we if we work on if if the establishment if the ministers if if the policymakers work on a on building a larger base and it's not result based it's it's it's more culture based it's participation based so that so that I mean opportunities are there and in Delhi capital so many stadiums over here I I have had kids who don't have access to grounds because the grounds I mean I'm talking about pre-pandemic days not not now no one has access to access to grounds in any case so in the societies and I've had this argument with with my the flat society that I live in where the parks are there brilliantly many good kids are not allowed to play because all people need to walk the pots will be broken broken all these things all these discussions debates fights kids are scolded and one or two uncles like me would stand up and say this and they should play and then I would go on a rant saying that olympics when olympics come we say we are not winning this is why we are not winning yeah but but yeah no this is a these are I think interesting conversations and I think we've gone actually quite a lot into our time because we have Uncle Leslie with us and Uncle Leslie is not just an athlete himself but he's also as you can make out I think he's a Zen master he's a martial arts practitioner and he has a very interesting both lived experience as well as a perspective on how sport can become a thing and we have often these conversations I think and this is to our audience as well as to one another that we often has to have these conversations within our circles of what the import or the value or the relevance of sport is in a country where so many other things are going on there is you know on the political front on the economic front on on on a public health front and I think looking at sport as primarily a public health issue is one perspective that can really contextualize very well many of these conversations and so even though we came to this starting point as an idea to discuss India's entire performance of at the Olympic Games we have not unfortunately gotten past Neeraj Chopra yet so what we will do is we will make you this promise and on camera with Leslie sitting here since he has already said that he cannot say no to us that we will have more I think broken down conversations about the various disciplines in which India has performed well and sort of sort of looking at how we have gotten to that stage and right and particularly sport like hockey maybe we'll also digress into football and things like that because there's a shared history and kind of culture there that that kind of feeds into the whole thing so so we will get back to that but but so maybe you guys can treat this as a one hour long teaser teaser of the Olympics might have finished but our coverage of the Olympics is just a preview of the game and a preview that is actually leading into because also it is I can understand that in in terms of the language that we use and some of the context that we are applying it sounds like an ableist perspective that only if you are sound of body now if you're going to win the medal then your hands and feet or your faculties should be in a defined set of normal right or you should have some parameters on which you physically meet then only will you be invested in that you will give some time you will coach you will give you a chance to play or go somewhere but this is not the fact because in a few days the Paralympics will start and and both Paralympics as well as the Paralympics Special Olympics movement that also talks about some of these kind of issues so so we'll get into some of these conversations as well of like how why sport is not just relevant to one or two or a gender or from any one perspective and particularly not from a perspective of becoming rich or winning medals only yes if that is a consequence of it happy so great I mean more power to Nira Chopra and lovely number go in and Mirabai Chanu and yeah great remarkable great journey they deserve the respect they have become they're I mean on top of the world that we're in their respective field so yeah but the larger larger cases for the entire population like we are celebrating but we we are celebrating with the disconnect because we don't understand Javelin yeah we don't understand after all in North India yeah different but otherwise you don't understand wrestling you don't understand boxing so so what what what took Bajrang Puneer to have that bout when he had any knee injury which was serious it's it's it's you understand it if you if you understand that sport I'm not saying you should everybody should wrestle tomorrow but in the US it's mandatory in school you wrestle and I mean at some level yeah and some level of yeah for gym you have at movies yeah yeah of course where the nerd is upset that he has to do wrestling but yeah that's that's how it is so there there was a bit by I think Chomsky many years ago and many people have commented on it from various perspectives obviously sport is something that is I think universally at some level whether we relate to it or not we feel like we have each of us has the right to comment on it yeah right so Chomsky was saying that a in high school or something he was watching a game of basketball and where he didn't know the people who were playing and he had no equation with them he didn't relate to the sport so why should he be watching fair yeah and it's a it's a very personal I think limited perspective and I'm not like taking on yeah giant yeah like that but but the fact is that he did find it worthy enough to make a comment on the subject yeah and I think from from that perspective we can continue some of these discussions yeah like you said with the Paralympics coming up and for me it's a it's a it's a larger event because it's it's it can wait I mean it conveys the Olympic ideal I mean in a much more what you call that idealist way in at the Paralympics the inclusiveness the the chance for everybody to compete I mean in that sense of course you have to qualify to be there yeah of course it's not that they are not competing to be the best at what they are doing yeah but it's just that there is a little bit less focus on on I think the hyper achievers or the super achievers or the world record breakers and and like a long time ago I think I was reading somewhere I don't know about how in many ways India is the last bastion of the idea that the Olympic movement is an amateur movement that you okay you play but you play on the side yeah like if you still do analysis of the team so I think I this is other athletes yeah to forge man yeah police man state police man yeah central police services man yeah hockey team go there can't I think 90% are railways employees so in that sense amateur your main job or you have free time what the Brits I guess tried to propagate with you know the the four minute milers and and all of these guys yeah the idea of this Oxford educated student athlete you know yeah which in some in some I guess cases still happens today yeah but what that actually means and how India is perhaps the last place where this actually happens because in the end the fight is not so much for a medal for most participants yeah but it's for that job and that financial security and your family can then have a place to you know live and so they will raise that point so that's that's another thing so there is that mindset issue that happens with athletes so at some point that that tipping point happens and where only few athletes escape the seven who won I mean seven plus the team players who won the medal and the others because then you make that it's not it's not a easy choice it's not a deliberate choice either but you realize at certain point be yeah I need this job I need to and so then that you lose yeah and you have to focus on one thing or the other this is exactly the point that I discussed in the story that I wrote on Bhavani Devi who made a debut non-medalists who now she is forgotten but the debut was celebrated she would have she could have made the debut in Rio had had things been said had she been sent for competitions and she qualified then and she was good enough then younger and better and she was part of a bunch of great fencing fencers trained in si center in Kerala in Kodi Kodi where I spoke to the coach for that story and he mentioned that almost all of them the rest of the bunch I have all stopped in the sense the serious competition they are focusing on their jobs common jobs whatever they may manage with the with the national medals with the small small international medals that they got and they stopped Bhavani Devi almost stopped in 2016 when she didn't make it just that the coach encouraged her and a year later Ghostport foundation got into selected I mean it's just things falling into place luckily for her she trains abroad in italy now and then obviously it shows so so it's the same same idea that job it it sometimes act as a bit of a problem especially for athletes who have gone there so Indian sport is like the country itself it's it's very tricky it's a mind field if you get into it trying to argue for something because there's always always always something to prove the opposite prove the opposite so you it's it's great that that these athletes are getting jobs it's great that the government support is there for athletes to train but then again I presented the case that top every so grassroots are being ignored ignored athletes are not getting when they want it so so that's probably why it's it's it's again the culture idea is is a it's a larger thing because in over time in 20 30 40 years time you will reach a stage where where these things won't matter because sport is that entrenched into the into the lifestyle that happens in north india in wrestling yeah and it's not like it's not bajrangi was born yesterday it's because there is a feeding system around everybody wrestlers and and they come out yeah and the reason why even a sort of foreign commentator who is telling us about the sport when the world feed is happening yeah can say that all india's all wrestlers come from haryana but i agree with you i agree with you but before you take off on the other story i'm going to put an end to this yes of course as always and sport and politics are india's first olympic wrestling medalist came from marastra and last edition a marastrian wrestler got into controversy with our great sushil kumar and couldn't compete he got i mean he got he got got for doping i mean doping i don't know what exactly through this he served his bank uh so yeah yeah so so i think lots of uh we have laid i think you have laid the foundation for for several conversations enough at least to keep us and you busy and occupied for the next couple of weeks as well as during the course of the the paralympics when i think indian athletes will give us a lot more to celebrate a lot more to feel happy about i don't think we'll have huge numbers again and i don't think suddenly overnight it's not a sporting revolution that is hitting india but it's a gradual process of change and and i suppose growth in that sense and and following some of these athletes what it does give us is it gives us a new speck yeah and sport sport doesn't work with revolution that's my it's it's very clear i mean even when you talk about cricket 83 world cup it it took 20 years for for and 20 years of whatever systematic non-systematic whatever bcci and the however it happened however it happened but it took that much time and it took stars also it took such a time looker it took the rest of the guys who came subsequently to to take cricket where it is bollywood marriages between everything everything everything fits into the thing and it becomes the television revolution all of this yeah for sure so many things to talk about and and if uh if ram goa could write a thousand page book on uh you know the history of cricket in india and how we've gotten to the stage there's no reason why leslie and i can't talk for a thousand plus minutes on some of these subjects even though there is a clear disconnect between us and the guys in the studio who are already passing out and sending us not so subtle uh hails to keep quiet and leave so we will take your leave on on that note thanks leslie it's been way it's always great talking to you yeah and thank you for watching if you are if not well you know it's a good time to start