So, finally, the gold drought was broken by the stellar performance by Neeraj Chopra. The performance of Indian contingent has been quite impressive in this Olympiad. The medals tally does not do justice to some heart breaking near-misses. However, somehow, the whole achievement was somehow seeming incomplete, till this golden cherry was put on the top of this quite impressive cake by this handsome javeliner from the Indian Army. I must confess that I have not been watching any of the Olympic events live. Part of it can be attributed to inertia as we can't seem to get out of Netflix and Amazon Prime even when we get sometime to stare at the television. Still one could not help but look for video clips of the Golden throw. The throw that sent the javelin flying followed by a calculated follow through to avoid fouling the mark was every bit impressive. And it transported me to another era some twenty years back - the last time I had cheered for someone sending a javelin hurtling through the wind across the ground. Quite by chance, this weekend we watched, on Netflix, Unbroken - part biography of US long distance Olympian Louis Zamperini, who won laurels at the Berlin Olympics, and then, as a prisoner of war with the Japanese, endured what only the Japanese Army could do. Eerily, the movie also transported me to that same era, some 20 years back.
In a nation wholly obsessed with cricket, we were no exceptions. Of course cricket was the first priority if you had choice, either in watching or or in playing. However, we studied in a Boarding School which was a part of a comity of schools founded in the heydays of Raj, on the pattern of of the fabled public schools of the mother country, and games and sports were a big part of our daily life, in all the associated variety. We had football, field hockey, squash, tennis. However, Athletics played a big part in any Oakgrovian's life especially in the longer "summer term", if we could call it so.
The school opened as the monsoon clouds gathered along the hills. Initially, it was time for Football. It is the only game which is possible in heavy downpour. (Although occasionally it would rain so hard that the backpitch was literally flooded, and the ball would float) So we had the Inter House Tournament, and the Inter School Tournament thereafter. St. George's, our neighbours next door hosted Jackie Memorial, which saw teams from across North India participate. Our school wasn't the most comfortable with Football, especially in the open, "Senior Division". Not that we did not have our moments, esp in the Inter House. One would recall Imran Khan's flamboyant locks and "international" looks and moves, as he kept the goal for his house. Another moment that stands out in mind, is the straight off the centre point volley by Ranjan Kumar, against our hapless goal keeper. It was the fastest goal I have ever seen - 4 seconds from whistle. However, the memory most sharply etched on my mind is that of my classmate Mohnish, getting his arm broken, defending his goal post in a junior division inter school match against Wynberg Allen. The two forwards literally trampled on his bones with their studded boots, but he did not let the ball go. In its own way, it showed us a glimpse of the stuff martyrs are made up of.
Come September, however, Football gave way to Athletics. To begin with, it was the preparation for the Cross Country race which we colloquially called "the Marathon". It was about 3.5 km long for the kids and 6 km for adults. It was a series of ups and downs, as any course along a hill would be. And the final acclivity before the finish line was literally breathtaking (taxi cabs ferrying us and our luggage from the plains often stalled on this climb). For as long as I can recall, on the day the race was actually run, it used to pour, a lot. The starting line used to be crammed with the hopefuls, and a lot many fell down within steps at the sudden start. The rest ran for the glory of their House, for it was the richest event pointwise - the winner got 10 points, unlike winners of any other event who had to be content with 5. By September end the rains would stop and the focus would shift to the Valley, the only "green field" in the whole of bajri-surfaced Mussoorie. It was the arena for almost all of the track and field events. Mile, 800m, 400m, 200m, 100m. Long Jump, Triple Jump, sometimes High Jump, and much later, pole vault. Throw events were generally done on the Back pitch. Until, it was decided in our later years, to showcase Javelin throw in the main Valley function. Which is what brought all these memories flooding back to me today. There is something majestic about the javelin and it's thrower - the elegant flight and the implantation. There are some moments to recall - from inter house, to Inter School, and finally to District level. Our school boasted of the fastest sprinter by a huge gap. Sanjeev was a year senior to us, and had an under 11 seconds time in 100 m! Then there was pole vault, where our school had to use dated iron shod bamboo poles against the fiber poles of the much richer private schools. Again, it was my same classmate, who had been lent the fibre pole quite graciously, to start participation. However, once he started beating them, the fibre pole was snatched away! So he had to use the old bamboo to win silver (or bronze, can't recall) I recall loud jeering from our camp, telling him what to do to his opponents' nether zones with that sturdy bamboo! Of course, the most dramatic event that occurred happened in my final year, when three houses tied for the first position, based on the final results of the 4x100m relay race! I was at the scoreboard then, and it was one of the most anxious moment I had had, for the masses were really angry about the result. The Math did not lie, of course. Then again, it shows us this ugly facet of human nature - instead of being happy for their own first place, they were mad about someone else's top position.
Of course, the end of the last para reveals a lot about my own place in the scheme of things. I was a glorified scorer, and not a player. While I may look back at those days of Athletics with glasses rose tinted with nostalgia, I am in no illusion about how painful those one and half months of Athletics were for me and a few other kindred spirits. As any acquaintance of mine would know, I had absolutely zero inclination for any sport. Other than the gully variety of cricket in the early childhood, and some rusty badminton picked up during field postings, I have not played much sports. The reason is quite simple - I was not good at them. That may very well be because I have not played them much first. Yeah, the chicken and egg problem. Still, of all the sports around, why were athletics the most painful for me? It is because the team sports like Football, Hockey and Cricket had place for only 11 players and 5 reserves. Hence, I was in no remote danger of being on the team, and I would be just a passionate spectator, cheering the House team as expected. Although, on one occasion, when we were in Class VII, the whole of class VIII had boycotted the Inter House Hockey tournament midway. Some issue involving some classmate. Our house team had made it to the final, and a team had to be fielded out of Class VII and VI alone! So we had a total of 13 "players" available. While I still could not make it to the playing eleven, I had the misfortune being the first replacement. Guess the thirteenth guy was even more removed from sports! I stood there on the sidelines, in my shorts, holding a broken and taped over hockey stick. Those were some of the most nerve racking 70 minutes. Whenever any player showed any hint of getting injured, my heart would skip a beat. Our captain took a scoop to his head, and it must have hurt like hell. Mercifully, he carried on - may have been the quality of available bench strength at the back of his mind that urged him to play on despite the nasty blow. Our Housemaster was the referree, and there were allegations of biased decisions, which led to all 3 houses cheering against us. Finally at 1-1 the game went into a shoot out, which was won by some good goalkeeping by my classmate Abhishek. I escaped a public humiliation.
However, unlike these sports, Athletics did not have a team size limit, as they were individual events. The long distance races had no limit to the number of participants. So just out of spite, our seniors forced us to participate. Their spite was justified at many levels. In those days, inter house / school athletics involved a process known as indexing, where one's weight in pounds and height in inches were added together. The magnitude of the sum decided the category or "Division" in which the said boy could participate. I remember the cutoff for subjunior division or "Subs" was 132. Well, most of the better players of my class in our house were bigger and heavier (may be that was partly the reason why they were good) - and most landed in Intermediate Division (the 3rd level)! For comparison, one senior from Class XI, who had the advantage (?) of a short height, had starved himself down to Junior Division level! We did do that - all of us to some extent, some of us to a dangerous extent. Some lived for weeks on salted lemon water. We had not heard of bulimia and anorexia back then. One was supposed to starve for house/school/personal glory, so that one lost enough weight to get "indexed down" to a lower Division where, after regaining full strength, one could have an (unfair) advantage. Well, since most of our classmates in the house were indexed out, it imperilled us in two ways - firstly, the whole class was labelled as "house-unpatriots", who did not starve themselves enough. Secondly, competing in the "Subs" and Junior Division fell on our most unworthy shoulders. Our whole class gave the House 1 measly point - a day scholar, who incidentally being a local boy, had a sporting upbringing, and incidentally being the shortest boy in the class across the 4 houses, had no trouble making it to "Subs". Rest of us? Well, we kept up with motto of Baron Pierre de Coubertin - that the most important thing was taking part. And boy, did we take part! I lost the mile by a full round, and 800 by half. Did not qualify for the main event in the 400. Even the shot could not be putted to the first graduation mark. And in the long jump, I succeeded in reaching the pit in my last attempt! Those were the days, of course. The nights were worse (still better than the nights some of our juniors endured). One would be dragged into the cupboard room. A dimly lit place for dimly lit activities. Each one of us was asked how many points "we had given to the House". Of course, none. Even the day scholar was absent at the night, so our collective score could not get off the mark! Once we had regaled our scores, of course, the patriotic seniors did what they deemed fit to motivate us. If only more medals could be had that way, we could have outsourced our Olympic coaching to the police! [Or may be the Forces - for our juniors, described as having had it worse than us in the para above, had their heads bashed from both sides with gym weights (rubberized, of course, they weren't total savages) in the school gym, by a senior, who went on to win the sword at the NDA (or was it the IMA), and would be doing his unit proud right now (I hope not the way he did his House proud in the gym that night!).] Well, everyday we came out all resolved to win at least one point (the 4th position got you that), not so much because of the fear of our seniors' "motivational exercises", but largely because we did not want to be "burdens upon the House", which we were reminded we were, on a daily basis. Unfortunately, our schoolmates from other houses conspired to cruelly deny us that measly point, and we were rescued only when the Annual Athletic Meet was over, and we had lost the first place to the House which had been champion for 14 years, and had been knocked off the perch last year on a technicality.
In our second year, in Class VII, we had a kind and genial House Captain. Plus the team in general did not have a fighting chance, and we did finally end up 4th. So, there was not much trouble given to us. Not that we were left unmolested. Just that they could not really call us "burden on the House" without accounting for their own role in the ignominious position the House was in. The next year, I had an existence of my own in the school, and I did not participate in any event, and dared anyone to make me!
Fortunately, this aversion to sports was not genetic. My brother excelled in midfield at football, kept goals in hockey, and even won gold in that pinnacle of athletic event - the Pole Vault. The school had invested in a decent fibre pole by then!
Coming back to "Unbroken". My wife wondered how someone could do that to another human being, and how someone could take it so lying down. Same is her reaction to every Holocaust movie I have made her endure. Same was the reaction of my service batchmates when we watched the light and sound show at the Cellular Jail. I do not wonder. I have seen what even juvenile humans can do to even more juvenile human beings in an institutional setting. As I have said earlier, human villainy is but ephemeral; it takes institutions to crystalize it. In the end, we look at the good, the bad, and the ugly, with the same rosy nostalgia. Even Zamperini patched it up with the Japs, in the end!
