ENGLISH STORY Sports in India At the age of 12, most people have a dream.

Some want to grow up to become engineers, or doctors, or teachers, while others would like to become sportsmen, or policemen, or scientists. K.C. Jagan was just another ordinary 12 year old, going to school, getting decent grades and doing his homework regularly, except for the fact that he possessed a special talent - he was an extraordinary swimmer. He had been swimming since the age of 9, and took pride in the fact that he was the fastest swimmer in his apartment complex. After seeing him swim, an elderly man had advised his parents to send him to a coach. Reluctantly, they agreed. The coach had swam for the state team, and had a hot temper. Jagan was yelled at for every little mistake he made. However, under his guidance, Jagan had managed to win the first prize in an interschool swimming tournament. Jagan seemed to have a bright future ahead of him. However, nobody really seemed to take notice of him. His classmates loved cricket, and thought highly of Ganesh, who was a good batsman, but had not even achieved half of what Jagan had achieved. On top of this, they made mean jokes about him, which made no sense at all. One of them went like this70% of the human body is made up of water. However, 90%of Jagans body is made up of water as he swims all the time. This water has submerged his brain, leading to his poor intelligence. Jagan tried to ignore such comments, but sometimes it just got too frustrating. He worked hard, spending at least 3 hours in the pool every day. However, during the monsoon season, he could not swim, as it rained daily during those times, and he had been told that the lightning would be attracted to the water. This problem could have been avoided had he been swimming in an indoor swimming pool. Unfortunately, such pools did not exist in his city. As the years wore on, Jagan kept winning inter-school tournaments. His name appeared in the papers on a couple of occasions. He had 12 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze medals to his name. Witnessing his students talent, his coach decided to take him to the under-16 state tryouts. In order to make it to the state team, Jagan started practising 5 hours daily, following his coachs recommendation. His hard work bore fruit. In the lead-up to the state tryouts, Jagan won ten medals in 5 tournaments he took part it. Finally, it came to the point when only four days were left till the tryouts. When he arrived at the pool, however, the greatest misfortune was in store for him. The skies showed no mercy, hurling down water droplets, which splattered loudly on the pools surface. He returned home downcast. The next three days were no different. Jagan watched in anguish, pleading with the clouds to give way for

the suns rays to reach him. Sadly, it did not do him any good. He went to the tryouts, barely having had practice in the last week. When he saw the huge swimming pool of the state swimming association his jaw dropped. His body began tingling with fear. He tried his best to listen to what his coach was saying. Unfortunately he did not hear a word of the mans advice to him. He tried his best to concentrate, but just couldnt. In 2 hours time, he was standing in the front of his lane, with two people to his left, and five to his right. He gaped at the 50 m stretch of water that lay before him. He then bent and got into position. His hands were trembling. As the referee blew the whistle, he dived head first into the pool hoping for the best. He covered the first 50 m easily, but as he turned around for the next 50m, he felt a sharp pain in his left calf muscle He tried his best to finish the race, in spite of the pain, but could not cover more than 10 more metres. A lifeguard helped him out of the water and a trainer was called to attend to his left calf. As he sat on a bench, staring at the pool and reflecting on what had just happened, his coach walked up to him. He thought his coach might console him with a short speech, but he was terribly mistaken. The coachs eyes narrowed, and with flaring nostrils, he said, Go home. Youre a waste of time. I should not have taught you anything. He went home with his eyes on the ground and with drooping shoulders. However, he believed he might still be able to become a good swimmer. The next day, he was back at the pool. He went through his regular warm up routine, as usual. As he was doing this, he felt that something was missing. As the hour progressed, he found what that something was. His passion for the game had deserted him. He was just a pale shadow of his regular enthusiastic self. By this time, he was 15 years old. He no longer wanted to swim. Besides, his parents wanted him to spend more time studying for school examinations. Naturally, he stopped swimming. Jagan grew up to be a software engineer, earning enough to meet his basic needs. He would have accomplished a lot more if he had chosen to become a swimmer. In this way, a brilliant talent was destroyed. The reasons for this were, poor infrastructure (Jagan swam in an open pool, which could not be used when it rained), lack of encouragement and the absence of a good quality coach (his coach used to discourage him). In addition to these, most Indians face one more problem poverty. Parents of these poor children will most certainly not be able to pay for a coach. These are the reasons for Indias poor sports standards. Citizens of the country shouldnt even expect Indians to win medals in big events such as the Olympics. Despite a population of 1.2 billion, India does not hold the coveted title of The Land of Sport, (although it probably should). In fact it is nowhere close.