Three cheers for Jaypee Infrastructure, Airtel and our Great India. Finally we have made it into the list of Formula One World Championship calendar. Kudos to Mr Vijay Mallya, Mr Subroto of Sahara. They could finally make India come up in the list of elite F1 championship calendar. This ubiquitous tone is loud enough in every F1 fan in India. All the fanfare will see its peak when 24 drivers from 12 teams will race past one another on the race track of Buddha International Circuit in the sunny afternoon of Sunday, October 30, 2011. Even the poorest ticket would garner more than 2500 bucks, which will fetch you a seat, from where the cars will be visible enough, but the name of the brand will definitely not be. Come Sunday and one can see a choc-a-bloc Greater Noida.
The valid question to be posed now is ‘whether we need a sport event like F1 in our country?’. The operative word is ‘need’. We can pose similar questions like “do we need cricket or hockey or football?”. Anyone can readily say that India eats Cricket, drinks Cricket and lives on Cricket although it is not our national sport. One can easily guess the craziness of cricket in India from the serious temperament, with which our small kids play gully cricket. The small grocery store bhaiya run out of tennis balls every other day not because we have so many junior Federers in our country but kids prefer softer tennis balls for cricket in gully practice. Coming to the hockey, if you travel to any part of Jharkhand, northern part of Orissa, Punjab, Haryana, you will be happy to see the energy and enthusiasm with which the people are nurturing our national sport there. We have seen the likes of Dhanraj Pilley, Dhyanchand, who have spread the name of India wide and high. Moreover if we intro-spect what our country people really play, then kabaddi, gilli danda will be more meaningful for those people rather than some alien F1 race. Even cricket, football, hockey really does justice to the high population of India as all these games involve at least 2 teams with more than one player in each team. Above all these, F1 involves the state of art grids, pits and above all the stadium with great stands. This time it made Indian firm Jaypee to invest around $400 million only for the tracks and stadium.
If we take example of developed countries like US we can at least learn the meaning of prioritization. The US used to hold F1 race till 2009 in Metrapolis till they were hit by recession. Then they did not find F1 to make any positive financial sense for their country. So they stopped hosting such an event. It would be definitely wrong to compare the strategies of so different countries. The ultimate intent of Indian Govt. for allowing to host such an event is to create revenues out of its tourism section, which will leave no stone unturned to appease such a cramming crowd. But what we forget here is that, we are still under the section of categorical warning due to concurrent terrorist activities and misconduct towards tourists. Why people will flock to a place, where scavengers are ready to take on their prey. Moreover, our south asian counterpart has a marvelous Sepang F1 track, where cars pelt along during the night with the flood light. The tickets there cost around half the Indian track prices as the track was built with government assistance.
So it’s high time, these private players should concentrate in improving the basic infrastructure of our present sports events. I won’t blame the private companies for such a step-motherly attitude towards the home grown sport events. Rather it is complacency in part of our sports authority people, who could not attract the investments in their favour. It’s high time, that we should take the cue of the sponsors of such events. They are ready to invest in our sports, but we should be able to show them our commitment, dedication. Until unless we come up with some real enthusiasm, commitment and after all innovation in our traditional sport, the kabaddi, hockey are soon going to be games of the past glory.
The valid question to be posed now is ‘whether we need a sport event like F1 in our country?’. The operative word is ‘need’. We can pose similar questions like “do we need cricket or hockey or football?”. Anyone can readily say that India eats Cricket, drinks Cricket and lives on Cricket although it is not our national sport. One can easily guess the craziness of cricket in India from the serious temperament, with which our small kids play gully cricket. The small grocery store bhaiya run out of tennis balls every other day not because we have so many junior Federers in our country but kids prefer softer tennis balls for cricket in gully practice. Coming to the hockey, if you travel to any part of Jharkhand, northern part of Orissa, Punjab, Haryana, you will be happy to see the energy and enthusiasm with which the people are nurturing our national sport there. We have seen the likes of Dhanraj Pilley, Dhyanchand, who have spread the name of India wide and high. Moreover if we intro-spect what our country people really play, then kabaddi, gilli danda will be more meaningful for those people rather than some alien F1 race. Even cricket, football, hockey really does justice to the high population of India as all these games involve at least 2 teams with more than one player in each team. Above all these, F1 involves the state of art grids, pits and above all the stadium with great stands. This time it made Indian firm Jaypee to invest around $400 million only for the tracks and stadium.
If we take example of developed countries like US we can at least learn the meaning of prioritization. The US used to hold F1 race till 2009 in Metrapolis till they were hit by recession. Then they did not find F1 to make any positive financial sense for their country. So they stopped hosting such an event. It would be definitely wrong to compare the strategies of so different countries. The ultimate intent of Indian Govt. for allowing to host such an event is to create revenues out of its tourism section, which will leave no stone unturned to appease such a cramming crowd. But what we forget here is that, we are still under the section of categorical warning due to concurrent terrorist activities and misconduct towards tourists. Why people will flock to a place, where scavengers are ready to take on their prey. Moreover, our south asian counterpart has a marvelous Sepang F1 track, where cars pelt along during the night with the flood light. The tickets there cost around half the Indian track prices as the track was built with government assistance.
So it’s high time, these private players should concentrate in improving the basic infrastructure of our present sports events. I won’t blame the private companies for such a step-motherly attitude towards the home grown sport events. Rather it is complacency in part of our sports authority people, who could not attract the investments in their favour. It’s high time, that we should take the cue of the sponsors of such events. They are ready to invest in our sports, but we should be able to show them our commitment, dedication. Until unless we come up with some real enthusiasm, commitment and after all innovation in our traditional sport, the kabaddi, hockey are soon going to be games of the past glory.
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