Memories fly high when I recall those childhood days where we would want to come back from school and rush to the ground to play a couple of games. The pouching of the ball on the muddy fields, where one of us would run with a coconut palm engraved cricket bats, the moment where a group of lads play and share the joy of victory and friendship despite the scolding their parents burst on them for reaching home late. This is not about a traditional cricket game, be it Kith Kith, Kabaddi, Kho-Kho, many to say, has the dew tipped grass and muddy fields witnessed, where sports influenced us to be an encouraging team mate, a supportive friend and endure a spirit to live life. The winning, the hope, the losing, the tension all flashes of emotions that open up to feel alive.
Time has changed, people are into fitness, health and so has the evolution of sports games in India, from kabaddi to the upcoming FIFA U-17 world cup. For some, a sport is a goal to defeat an opponent in a competition, but it’s more than that, sports enhances social skills, dedication, teamwork and leadership in you. Be it the master skills of Mahabharata protagonist Arjuna’s bow and arrow to shoot the eye of a bird on a tree, or be it the Mughals afternoon chess, the richness of the Indian culture has never failed to inspire sports. Sports create in us an incredible moment in which each of us overcome the odds, as Vince Lombardi said: “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up”.