Do you think winning medals at the Asian Games is even relevant in India?

Exactly my point!!!

Multi-sport events like the Asian Games are just the meager and desperate attempt to CPR the dying sports like fencing, softball, taekwondo, speed skating, shooting, trampoline, weightlifting, and archery. These sports, again, to not disrespect the sports intellects out there (and the fanatics), never really appealed the mainstream. In fact, when looked closely, they have literally very small following. Majority of the people don’t even have clue that we have such sports. In India, in particular, we do not care about these sports. And there are good reasons for that.

(Courtesy: Indian Express)

Sure, calling the likes of Olympics, Commonwealth and Asian Games irrelevant would get on many people’s nerves, who wear their patriotism on their sleeves. Yes, really! See, for example, the ongoing Asian Games 2018. There’s quite a hullabaloo about who’s winning the medals and who’s not.

“*some name* made India proud” read the headlines, taking a breather from the regular Hindu-Muslim syllabus. And the sports intellects and patriots go gaga over on social media, hash-tagging, retweeting and liking the athletes’ images. Dare anyone say the event is irrelevant; you would be disrespecting the hard work and the win of the athlete. They made the country proud, dare you do that, you couch-potato.

But keeping aside the new social pressure of being an end-to-end nationalist, the fact is that Asian Games is irrelevant. Even with all the hypes in the media, no one will remember the athletes winning medals at the Asian Games 2018. They will return back to the country, there will be welcoming at the airport by the crowd of 10 people that the media will make look like hundreds. The MLAs might even announce prize amount of Rs 1 or 2 lacs to the medal-holders. And that’s it.