When Twitter ruined Shobhaa’s day

Indian school children make a formation of Olympic rings to wish Indian players good luck ahead of Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, near a school in Ahmedabad. (Photo: AP )

There’s something that goes hand in hand with any big sporting event involving India — be it the cricket World Cup or Olympics. It’s the bevy of caustic comments from armchair critics who, sitting in front of TV sets, spew vitriol on sportspersons to give vent to their disappointment. In all manners of speaking, author and controversy’s favourite child Shobhaa De’s recent tweet could have easily been brushed off as that of just another disgruntled fan. Except, it wasn’t. Broadcast to thousands initially and millions more later, through various news outlets and Internet portals, her comments on the supposed “incapacity” of India’s athletes to win medals, set off a counter-reaction so strong that it has made national headlines. First to respond to Ms De was none other than India’s Olympic poster-boy, Abhinav Bindra. Bindra was soon followed by the likes of Abhishek Bachchan and Jwala Gutta, who made their backlash heard in no unclear terms. They were in turn followed by millions among the masses who not only hit back at Shobhaa, but more importantly also put their weight behind India’s Olympians and came out in full support. We get some famous faces and sports personalities to gauge everything that Shobhaa got wrong and why exactly do athletes need our support and not empty criticism, now more than ever.

Venkatesan Devrajan, Olympian “I don’t know who the lady is, but if she is saying so it’s absolutely wrong. Is she even aware how tough it is to qualify to be a part of the Olympics The qualifying norms are extremely stringent. Besides, the players face a lot of pressure from the media and they are not shown as players but only individuals with medal prospects. Despite all the pressure, they perform. People who are from a different profession always think that the other profession is easy, and they shouldn’t comment about things they are not aware of.”

Sorabh Pant, stand up comic “I don’t have a problem with people making stupid comments on Twitter, The problem is when they don’t apologise, even her apology was so vague. I don’t think we understand what the Olympics is about, yes it is about medals but it is also about the stories of the underdogs and the Indian contingent this year is full of underdogs, people who have made it despite their circumstances, whether it’s from small villages and towns where their parents had to give up incessant amount of stuff to help their kids reach up to this level. These Olympians work for decades for seconds of glory. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t go out there and make fun of the athletes, but we can’t completely undermine what they are trying to achieve. Our athletes losing is not a failure on them. It’s a failure on us, because the Olympics are a barometre of country’s success and it’s our failure because we fail them to provide the necessities to rise up.”

H.S. Prannoy, (India’s fourth highest ranked men’s badminton player who won the men’s singles title at the 2016 Swiss Open in Basel) Citizens and backlashers at large need to understand the kind of efforts, time, energy and dedication we put in to reach a certain level. At the outside, for them it may be just another sport, they fail to fathom the efforts and that’s why the backlash. Abroad, even if players aren’t doing well or there is a slight dip in their performance, the country and the citizens still continue to support them. This, however, isn’t the case here as people don’t know how much it takes to win at the Olympics. Our players have had some very narrow and close matches and have given their best. We always try to give our best and when such comments pour in, they really hurt and pulls our morale down.”