Clueless in Kerala
by Grasshopper
For a country of a billion plus people and which talks of its hoary history and traditions we sure know how to take our sports triumphs with panache. A solitary gold and two bronzes have convinced us that India has arrived on the Olympic scene… big time. Millions of rupees have been promised to the three Indian gladiators at Beijing. Good for them. They deserve every paisa of it, having triumphed over tough opposition at Beijing and the even more formidable ones at home - the various sports federations headed by the Indian Olympic Association. Where was all this money that is being offered to the returning heroes?

Apparently there's more where it came from. Couldn't some of it have been spent on some of the sports we seem to be good at? Or some of the sports we can be good at if nurtured?

Kerala, not to be outdone by other states, has grandly announced it's planning to set up two shooting centres - one in Idukki - the ballpark figures being Rs 500 million and 400 million This from a state where even the underworld troops seldom fire a gun in anger. The one in Idukki may serve as an added attraction for the terrorists to hold their next training camp in this area. That's the bad news. The good news is the shooting galleries will never come on stream.

That may not stop the Party of the Working Class and the Oppressed from milking the milch cows in the Gulf. Where else can you expect to get the nearly Rs 1 billion for the two centres? The state is flat broke. It qualifies as a failed state but an official confession will be politically disastrous.

Perhaps Kerala can do well by being India's capital for beach volleyball. There are plenty of beaches although beach volleyball, like beach soccer, need not necessarily be held on a beach. Not terribly swish sounding as clay shooting - but our politicians will not know one from the other. But it'll be a terrific attraction for tourists, most of whom may not want to let off guns on holiday. Ayurvdea and beach volleyball - an intriguing combination surely. Why, it may even sneak us gold at the Olympics.

There are booby traps, of course. Our friendly neighbourhood bullies, the Tamils, may ambush us by leasing all our beaches till perpetuity and stage numerous international beach volley tournaments and make zillions of bucks. They may even bar the Malayalees from Kerala's beaches. The Tamils have never forgiven the ancient west coast kingdoms from breaking away from the ancient Tamil empire and developing a language of their own. All that may be old stuff but the Tamils, like the Chinese, always hanker to relive their history.

grasshopper@columnist.com